Around 35,000 homes and businesses still without power after Storm Darragh

Ellen O'Donoghue

Thousands of homes and businesses remained without power on Monday morning after Storm Darragh hit Ireland over the weekend.

Outages were still present around the country, but the ESB said the north-west, south-east and the midlands are the worst affected.

At the peak of the storm, as many as 400,000 customers were without power.

ESB Networks Regional Manager Brian Tapley told Newstalk that their crews have been mobilized around the country.

“Unfortunately, some customers will be out for a number of days and the last customers could take up to a week given the scale of the damage that the storm caused,” he said.

The ESB said they have restored power to the majority of these homes and businesses, however it will take a number of days to address certain areas, due to the scale of the damage.

Mr Tapley added that there are still around 35,000 customers without power.

“This storm is probably at the same scale of Storm Ophelia from 2017, only the difference is it’s hit the entire country. We have all our crews deployed around the country, our French counterparts Enedis are arriving today to support the efforts as well.”

Meanwhile, a number of ferry sailings between Ireland and Wales have been cancelled due to damage caused by Storm Darragh at Holyhead.

Irish Ferries and Stena Line cancelled their scheduled sailings from Dublin to the Welsh port on Monday as a precaution.

Both operators said they hope to resume sailings on Tuesday morning but encouraged passengers to visit their websites to find out the latest information.