180,000 customers remain without power as support to come from Austria, Finland, and France

Eva Osborne

The ESB has said 180,000 customers across the country remain without power as of Monday evening, down from the peak of 768,000 on Friday, after Storm Éowyn.

Skilled technicians from the UK have been deployed to the worst impacted areas, and further support is set to arrive from electricity network operators in Austria, Finland, the Netherlands, and France over the coming days.

Regional manager with the ESB, Siobhan Wynne, explained that ESB crews from the south and east of the country are being redeployed to the worst impacted areas once restoration in their areas has been completed.

Skilled retirees from ESB Networks are also being redrafted to assist.

"Our crews are continuing obviously with the restoration effort now from first thing this morning," Wynne said.

"We have moved a lot of our crews from the southern part of the country up northwards to try and assist with that effort.

"We now also have a significant resource coming from outside the country."

The ESB has said it anticipates that the vast majority still without power will be reconnected by Friday, January 31st.

For the remaining customers, their power will be progressively restored over the course of the following week, with some potentially being left without power until February 5th.

Thousands of homes are also still without water.

Emergency Response Hubs have been set up and lLocal Coordination Groups are now in place in 16 counties – Cavan, Cork, Donegal, Galway, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Westmeath, Wexford, and Wicklow.