IT’S A ‘FIRST world problem’ admittedly, but plenty of Dubliners had their mid-morning coffee plans ruined this morning after a power outage left the wider Temple Bar area offline.

A spokesperson for ESB Networks confirmed around 1,700 homes and businesses were affected by a cable fault near Fleet Street, to the east of Temple Bar.

The outage affected customers across the popular tourist area, and down to Christ Church.

“It began at around 9.40am and people were back on before 10.45am,” the spokesperson said.

The offices of Dublin City Council at Wood Quay were amongst the premises affected.

A group of protesters supporting former residents staging a sit-in at the Bru Aimsir homeless hostel on Thomas Street were told they couldn’t enter the reception area for health and safety reasons, as a result of the power cut.

Dublin Fire Brigade briefly attended the scene, as the protesters waited outside (we’ll have a full report on the protest up on the site shortly).

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