By Gráinne Ní Aodha and Cate McCurry, PA
Ministers have insisted that every effort is being made to restore power supplies that were cut during Storm Éowyn, amid concerns some communities could be left in the dark until next week.
Homes and infrastructure across Ireland were damaged during the nationwide red-level weather event, which brought record-breaking wind speeds and cut power to more than a million customers on the island.
A young man was killed after a tree fell on his car in Co Donegal during the storm.
Technicians from England and France were helping restore power to homes and businesses as around 278,000 remained cut off in the Republic and 65,000 in the North.
Around 109,000 were without water and 94,000 homes and businesses were without broadband as of Sunday.
Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris said “everything that can be done is being done” to restore supplies.
“I’m very conscious that there is many people in Ireland still without electricity supply and without water, and I want to assure people that everything that can be done is being done to restore people to supply as quickly as possible,” he said at the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels.
“I really want to express my gratitude to the incredible crews, who are doing so much work right across the country. We’ve gone from around over three-quarters-of-a-million people not having access to electricity to over 200,000 people now.
“But I am conscious as this goes on, the longer it goes on, the more hardship that imposes on people, and that’s why we’re carrying out a number of activities.”
He said the Air Corps had been assisting the ESB and the Civil Defence had been carrying out a number of activities, particularly in the north and northwest of the country.
Minister for Social Protection and Rural Development Dara Calleary said he understood people’s “frustration” that their utility services were not yet restored, but he said authorities were “working as hard as possible”.
He said “we will learn lessons” from the damage done by the storm but that there was a “complexity” to some repairs.
“We’re going to reflect on this, reflect on the severity of both this storm and the previous storm, and make changes as is necessary,” he told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
“But our immediate response since Friday and right through today and tomorrow, will be getting responses up, getting repairs done, getting the humanitarian hubs up.”
He said emergency response hubs had opened in counties Cavan and Laois in order to improve communications with people left in the dark by outages, and further hubs would be opened.
He said that local authorities were being tasked with visiting vulnerable people and the elderly on Monday and that he would visit some of the worst-hit areas in Co Galway this week.
He said he was also working to get generators for the agricultural community.
The National Emergency Co-ordination Group is meeting daily in relation to Storm Éowyn and will meet at noon on Monday.
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