⚠️ Storm Éowyn - Fri 24.01.25 (**Please read Mod Instruction in OP.**)

Taughmaconnell, South Roscommon

Update from ESB power check today, estimated restore time 20:00 31/1.

Outstanding political commentary.

Graced with gravitas, yet subtly colloquial in it's delivery.

A fine orator.

Yep, I have family living there and there have been a cluster of outages in that area. I wonder was something weakened during the storm and finally gave out?

Comreg should also make it compulsory for phone companies to make Irish-based, English-Speaking representatives available during crisis.

Try calling Vodafone to get info regarding the storm? You get through to the usual Mumbai-based call centre where they haven't the faintest idea what the issues are in the West at the moment!

I heard they're borrowing parts to get the West back and Dublin will get the countryside experience for a few days 😁

After previous outages crews from Northern Ireland & Scotland were brought in. On this occasion those areas needed their crews so the ESB had to arrange for crews from further away.

Would love to hear what EU crews thought about our network.

Decades of poor or non-existent planning from the ESB. No automated fault recognition system. It's a mess.

Add this to the failure of Met Eireann to provide the data it collects so that event modelling can inform infrastructural planning.

The Powercheck map is really starting to clear up now, Cork and Kerry and the rest of the South seem nearly sorted, Galway and Mayo still in a bad way.

Everywhere outside of Dublin is the countryside 😀 😉

Years back we had outages nearly every time the wind got up, went on for a few weeks. Turned out to be a dead swan hanging off a power line over a lake. Just happened to be in a blind spot and the ESB guy missed it when he surveyed the lines and he was local. Eventually narrowed down the section that was tripping breakers and followed the line on foot through the bog.

Edit: quote doesn't seem to be working, this is in reply to @cnocbui

it is because of the likes of you that we have people in power who don’t care that elderly people are left to die on trolleys

I soeak from experience unfortunately.

lol

Power restored here at 3:20pm. Powercheck.ie map still shows 'Fault' here at 10:20pm. Hmmm ….

The transmission network has 2 major problems ;

(1) Local services are carried on timber poles placed alongside roads which are often tree lined. Trees felled by storm activity bring down power lines (& fibre broadband + 'phone landlines). The solution used by many other countries in Europe is to bury the electricity / broadband / telephone lines, thus protecting them from most storm damage. This is a once off cost, as opposed to having to repair an above ground network after each increasingly more regular 'weather event'. Even with storm damage the timber poles themselves have to be regularly replaced as they rot at the base, but usually only when signs of rot (pole leaning) become obvious.

(2) The repair & maintenance of this above ground network costs the ESB (The State / Taxpayer). Amongst those costs is the overtime paid to ESB staff & Contractors after every (increasingly more regular) 'weather event'. This provides a disincentive to change, since the ESB crews (represented by our fine Public Service Unions) can confidently factor in that overtime into their annual earnings. Why would they want to cut their overtime ?. Having said that, these crews work in a hazourdous & demanding job and I salute them. But I'd like a better, safer, more reliable network that means national disasters like Eowyn doesn't cripple us.

It's often said that 'Stress reveals character'. People stress themseves when events like Eowyn occur, and that stress can be directed at other people. "I'm alright Jack, so f7ck you" might be such a response.

You think its that simple do you. That every single thing that happens in the country is down to the government.

There arent many countries out there that havent a health or housing crisis.

What do you suggest? Do you think anyone outside of FF/FG is going to sort those issues.

To suggest that our politicians dont care about ppl dying is niave and immature beyond belief. Its not Russia or China you are living in ffs.

Im from west Galway and have to do all that, i just dont expect handouts for everything. But ya pesky city slickers living on the atlantic coast eh