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AROUND 142,000 PREMISES remain without power this evening following damage caused by Storm Éowyn, as further support arrived from Austria and Finland today.
Additional crews from electricity network operators in Netherlands and France are due over the coming days.
Engineers from England also arrived in Ireland over the weekend and Taoiseach Micheál Martin has thanked his British counterpart Keir Starmer for this assistance.
Meanwhile, about 11,500 premises supplied by Uisce Éireann remained without water as of lunchtime today, with an estimated 31,000 people affected.
ESB crews from the south and east of the country are being
Gardaí have also warned people to be vigilant of text scammers pretending to be electricity providers.
Chloe, who lives in Co Clare with her husband and dog Rua, said that there was “no end in sight” of the power outage affecting her hometown of Ennistymon that began on Thursday night.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been without power for this long,” Chloe said.
“ESB are saying power will come back on 4 February so I’m hoping that’s the worst case scenario.”
Chloe, who is originally from the US state of Michigan, said that she had “never experienced winds” like those brought by Storm Éowyn.
“I suppose that’s the price we have to pay by living in such a beautiful, remote area – unfortunately, we get the brunt of everything as well,” Chloe said.
“There’s power lines down nearby and the forestry areas have suffered a lot of damage.”
Chloe and her pet Rua have temporarily relocated to a friend’s house, but she added that the dog is “a bit unsettled”.
“She was my buddy throughout the storm, so I was glad to have her,” Chloe said.
She added that the local community has rallied to support one another.
“The Doolin Hotel stayed open the whole time and kept their rooms open for people to access charging points and showers, and there’s a few community-led hubs which have opened today to help people which is great,” Chloe said.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Prime Time this evening, Communications Minister Patrick O’Donovan said he understands people’s frustrations in still having no power following the storm.
“This was essentially a hurricane for all intents and purposes, that hit the country and broke records that have stood since 1945,” O’Donovan said.
He said one third of all ESB customers were “knocked out” as a result of the impact of the storm, adding that “everything humanly possible” is being done to try and get people connected to power again.
“Unfortunately, in many cases, there is no network left. In many cases, the power lines are just literally obliterated, and they’re starting from scratch, but they are connecting people in their hundreds and in their thousands per day.
We have never seen anything like this.
Asked about the level of preparedness for the storm, the Limerick TD said the Government is working with a number of EU countries to fix the power grid.
He said that after the Status Red wind warnings had lifted and the scale of the damage could be assessed, the State asked EU countries to send crews to restore power.
“The first of them have arrived today. There’ll be more of them arriving tomorrow.
“Generators have already arrived and will be arriving in the next number of hours from Denmark, Poland and Romania, and some of them are arriving in up the road into Shannon Airport.
“To say that the government didn’t respond here, and I know that some politicians are trying to make hay of this, is just factually not correct.”
Today, Taoiseach Micheál Martin visited Castlerea, Ballaghaderreen and Kiltoom to meet the communities impacted by the storm. He also warned of further storms of similar magnitude.
Speaking to reporters in Co Roscommon, he paid tribute to the “community spirit” seen in response to the storm.
Martin said previous investments by Government in community groups, organisations and facilities “has reaped some dividends in terms of having those facilities in place” to help people without power and water.
“I think it speaks to the ongoing need to continue to invest in community organisations on the ground, community facilities on the ground,” he said.
“In a world where we are going to experience more severe storms, I think, with greater regularity than we would have had in the past, that social infrastructure, that social and community capacity, is extremely important, working with statutory agencies like the local authorities, civil defence and others, gardaí, HSE, to respond to such challenges.”
Elsewhere, Minister for Rural and Community Development Dara Calleary visited west Galway and met with communities in the Connemara and Árainn areas to see progress on repairs before travelling to Inis Mór to see the storm recovery work. He also travelled to An Cheathrú Rua where he met with local community workers.
“I will be briefing the Taoiseach and my colleagues at Cabinet tomorrow on my visit today and you can be assured this Government will not be found wanting when it comes to supporting communities,” Calleary said in An Cheathrú Rua.
The ESB warned today said it has been made aware of several instances of ”potentially very dangerous
The ESB has also been made aware of “dangerous instances” caused by the increased use of generators in response to the widespread outages.
Generators require proper ventilation and a standby generator should never be connected directly into the electrical circuits or directly to your metering point. Generators should also be installed by a registered electrical contractor.
The ESB warned that there are still many faults on the electricity network and that fallen debris after a storm can prevent people from seeing hidden risks, such as wires entangled into trees and branches.
If you come across fallen wires or damaged electricity network, never, ever touch or approach these as they are live and extremely dangerous.
“Stay safe, stay clear of any fallen lines and report any damage to 1800 372 999 .”
Meanwhile, ESB said its customer contact centre has doubled its resources to accommodate the unprecedented high volumes of calls since 23 January.
At the peak of the power outages last Friday morning, around 768,000 customers were without power.
By Friday 31 January, many customers will have had supply restored.
However, as many as 100,000 customers will have to wait until next week to have their power restored.
ESB said these customers will “progressively have power restored over the course of next week”.
Additional crews are in Cavan, Monaghan, Westmeath, Longford, Roscommon, Clare, Galway, Donegal and Sligo today, the ESB has indicated.
ESB Networks Regional Manager Siobhán Wynne told RTÉ Radio 1′s Morning Ireland this morning that the restoration effort is “really difficult” given the numbers without power.
“Our population is quite dispersed in Ireland. We’ve roughly six times the amount of network per customer than most other European utilities, over 160,000 kilometres of overhead network, so that makes us a little bit more vulnerable,” she said.
Fellow ESB Networks Regional Manager Brian Tapley yesterday noted that outside of urban centres, there is a predominantly overhead electrical network and that Ireland has “around four times the overhead network per capita compared to the UK or Europe”.
He pointed to this as a reason why Ireland is experiencing a higher level of power outages than the UK.
Meanwhile, Garda Sergeant Michelle O’Halloran, Crime Prevention Officer, Limerick Division said that “as many households all over the country and within county Limerick remain without power and await restoration of power, it is important to be aware of this current scam text in circulation”.
“Scammers are posing as an electricity provider and we are urging you not to share any personal information with the scammers,” said Sergeant O’Halloran.
Sergeant O’Halloran advised people to “block” and “report suspicious numbers” to An Garda Síochána.
“Always independently verify requests for personal information and do not rely on messages from a thread of previous genuine texts,” Sgt O’Halloran said.
“Caution is needed surrounding such messages and I would again encourage people to discuss these types of crimes with elderly relatives and friends to alert them about this,” she added.
Generators are now in place at all Uisce Éireann plants where they can be connected, however not all locations are suitable for wiring up generators.
Alternative water supplies and tankers are also in place in 50 locations across the country.
Head of Water Operations at Uisce Éireann, Margaret Attridge, said there is a continuing focus on working with the ESB to prioritise power restoration to treatment plants and pumping stations, alongside providing alternative water supplies to customers where supplies have been disrupted for longer periods.
“Our priority now is to ensure the restoration of electricity to our plants and pumping stations that are running on generators or remain without power because connection to a generator is simply not possible,” said Attridge.
She added that tankers and alternative water supplies will be deployed as required, and that Uisce Éireann will be updating its website and providing information to local stakeholders about their locations.
With additional reporting from Diarmuid Pepper, Andrew Walsh, Jane Moore and David Raleigh
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We have the other extreme here. Damned if do. Damned if you don’t. The fact is heroin destroys families. They should of thought of that when selling the horrible stuff.
You’ll find that the majority, if not all, these inmates have come from broken homes and deprived communities where they sold drugs to survive. It’s nasty and yes they were part of the cycle that they themselves were trapped in but Obama is acknowledging that solution involve them; much in the same way Mo Molam knew the peace process in NI had to involve inmates in British prisons.
Why is Obama doing this at the end of his term instead of at the beginning? The US prison population stands at over 2million. That’s more than China has incarcerated. It’s almost 2.5 times more than Russia has in prison.
the vast majority of prisons in the US are privately owned, run foe profit and care more about the bottom line than society. barry is an actor..reading off a script and being told what to do, as badly as drugs have messed up parts of society unpunished white collar crime and the burden it has put on society has damaged it a lot more.
in america there is a prison industrial complex,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,thats the problem.
here there are yobos with 17 previous convictions walking free and committing more serious crimes because the justice system is far to lenient on them. the legal system does not mind, its a big cash cow for them.
Obama is a good actor and that’s all. It is well established fact that since he took office his administration has refused more freedom of information requests than other other administration in US history. And if he gave two shits about ‘non-violent crimes’ then he’d have long arranged for Snowden to come home and would have intervened in the Bradley Manning case as he could have done at any time.
He’s a liar, and has done nothing but further liberalise US laws (which is why most of these guys are in prison in the first place).
Hilary Clinton is far worse than he and if she makes it in it’s bye bye US.
OK idiot. Restored pride to US after years of Bush’s wrath. A true statesman. Agree with you about Hillary though. I hope Sanders wins
Try making a point like an adult and I might respond to you. Other than that. Take a hike.
you just replied to him.
My heart is bleeding purple piss reading the sob stories.
If anything our Judiciary here could learn a thing or two from US Judges about sentencing and the whole US legal system.
Instead of having Solicitors and Barristers they have just one set Lawyers who deal with your case from start to finish. Where there is a dedicated Prosecution Service staffed by full time Prosecution Lawyers and a dedicated Public Defenders Office staffed with full time Defence Lawyers for those that would normally get free legal aid here. And then Private Legal Firms for those that can afford them.
Yes because there is so little crime in the US compared to Ireland.
Funny how you, a prison officer, propose following almost every part of the US save the mass privatization of prisons, wonder why that could be, oh right, self interest.
Wari.
Simply because Privatised Prisons have been shown time and time again to be an utter disaster in terms of security and staff safety. One only has to look at our nearest neighbour to see just how much of a bad idea they are and why the rest of Europe are not following suit. In reality they actually cost the state more than those under Government control in the long term.
I’m all for criminals doing time for their crimes especially violent or sexual crime but some of the sentences for carrying a small amount of drugs are ridiculous. Check out the segment John Oliver did on it, it’s a real eye opener. When I think of the idiot I was as a teenager, I would hate to go to jail for 15 years because of being on idiot.
I didn’t deal drugs! lol
If the sale of illegal substances was legalised and regulated then a lot of these places would see a massive reduction in crime as the people relying on the drug trade to make a living would be forced into tax-paying, gainful employment as they could not compete with a well regulated, safe industry. Also, not only would we gain the tax from the legal sale of drugs, it would be much easier to ensure the quality and safety of such substances as they could be tested in proper labs before being passed onto the public. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the head in the sand approach just doesn’t work. As long as there is a clear demand for drugs, there will always be people willing to risk everything to meet that demand for massive tax free profits.
In fact the Americans have the right idea here. Conspiracy to distribute heroin is no small crime. In my opinion 15 years is entirely appropriate. Crime must be punished harshly or we are all doomed.
They should do more about guns than 1000 year prison terms
How about maybe not dealing heroin. Heroin is a violent drug as is most other drugs. And yes that includes Weed. So just because the initial deal was violent… what we should let them away. The Americans have the right way. Full length senences for federal offences. If we could adopt there legal court room system this country would be a hell of a lot better off.
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have your say