The ESB has said it could be the weekend before power is restored to the remaining 25,000 customers who have been without power since Storm Éowyn 12 days ago.
ESB regional manager Siobhan Wynne said the worst affected areas are Galway, Mayo, Roscommon and Leitrim, with counties Cavan, Longford, Sligo, Monaghan and Donegal also impacted.
“All of our resources continue to work over the weekend and again early this morning with almost 3,000 people working on the ground, including our own crews and crews from different international utilities," she told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland. "And we have additional crews now arriving in the morning from Northern Ireland.
“We expect to get the majority of these 25,000 customers back over the next couple of days and restoring power then to remaining customers over the course of the remainder of this week.”
Ms Wynne acknowledged it could be the end of the week and into the weekend before power is returned to all.
“We are looking to try and get as accurate forecast restoration dates as possible. We will be working on that again today. And we will update Power Check then with the most up to date information later today.”
The Cathaoirleach of Monaghan County Council, where many remain without power, has said that better preparations are needed to deal with future extreme weather events.
Cllr Paul Gibbons told Morning Ireland “we have to look at absolutely everything. To me, everything's on the table and it's so important we provide a better service.
“I'm responsible for all of our citizens, to ensure that they do not have to go through this level of trauma again. These extreme weather events are becoming more and more regular. We can't ignore that. But what we can do is prepare better. And some of the things we would be looking at is around tree and hedgerow maintenance, having generators in key infrastructure sites, whether that's water treatment sites, health centres, community centres, looking at the whole issue of underground power cables as well.
"It's a particular issue up here. I know where there's a North-South Interconnector planned and underground is something we've been calling for for a very long time. So yeah, a huge amount to be done going forward.”
Facilities for people without power in Carrickmacross include a Red Cross sponsored Happy Hub for teens along with assistance for Leaving Cert students who are having difficulties in submitting their CAO application forms, the closing date for which has been extended to February 5th.
One family without power for 11 days is Lynn and David Braniff. They have been told it will be Thursday this week at the very earliest when their power will return.
Ms Braniff told of how they light the fire to heat water and if they want to bathe they “throw basins of water at each other.” Her husband added that the generator they have uses five litres every three hours, so they use it only when needed.
“We're basically sitting haemorrhaging money at the minute. We don't have the facilities here to always cook. So you go to a deli. It's what, €15, €20? You know, you can't sustain that every day.
"We've already lost a chest freezer full of food out in the shed. We've lost the contents of our fridge just at this point. You know, the credit cards just go up and up and up and you're just thinking, this is what we're having to do just to try and get through day to day,” added Ms Braniff.
There did not appear to be any organisation to the ESB efforts to return power, she said.
“There was a team up from us on Sunday and we stopped in excitement to ask them, are you coming to our house. And they were like, no.
"To me, that signals in my head that there's no organisation. There's no one sitting down and going, right, we have these faults all here within a 20 kilometre radius from each other. Can we get two teams out to that? I do understand that it is a crisis, but when you're sitting and you don't have power, you can't get answers.
"You know, you do, you give up. This is no fault of the guys working for ESB, I have a lot of respect for those guys. Probably their upper management or whoever is coordinating this really does need to have a look to get a plan in action because this will happen again.”
Cllr Gibbons said last Saturday there had been 20,000 houses in Monaghan without power, that was now down to 800 “suffering without electricity.” A number of water schemes were also affected which caused a lot of hardship, he added.
“I suppose we can't control the weather. But what we can control is how we protect our infrastructure, how we prepare for extreme weather events and how we react.
"Looking at this particular event, if we were to look at what could have been done better, I suppose the communication piece is one that would have to be improved going forward. People are crying out for information around the restoration of their essential services – water, power and broadband and mobile phone connectivity.
“There was a severe lack of information from all the service providers, something that should be improved going forward. I suppose there could have been better resilience built into our infrastructure as well.
"Things like our water treatment plants should have had onsite generators, our health centres and community centres. So there are a lot of lessons to be learned. I just want to pay tribute to the people on the ground who have worked so hard to restore services, something that's very much appreciated by myself and everybody in County Monaghan.”
