Power cuts wreak havoc across Ennis

ENNIS businesses and residents were left in the dark by inadequate communication from the ESB during last week’s major power outages, it has been claimed.
However, according to the electricity board, the response to the outages, which occurred without warning, was as rapid as possible and they strived to inform the public with up-to-date information.
The electricity supply was hit at around 11am on Thursday, affecting nearby homes, banks, shops, businesses, pubs and restaurants. ATM machines across the town were also affected by the disruption.
Businessman and vice-president of Ennis Chamber Brian O’Neill said restaurant and hostel The Rowan Tree was “one of the worst affected” by the outages. He has called on the ESB to review their communications strategy for dealing with major disruptions to the power supply.
He said the electricity went out at 11am and didn’t return to The Rowan Tree until 1.30am the next morning.
“We were 14 hours without power and eventually we had to make the decision to close up the restaurant and send people home because we didn’t know when the power would be coming back.
“We had to throw €1,500 worth of food in the bin and we lost a lot of business that we would have had on a busy Thursday. We had 70 people staying in the hostel and many of them, we helped with finding alternative accommodation.
“We needed to get relevant information about what was happening and we couldn’t. I spent ages on an automated telephone line trying to get a hold of somebody and when I did, they didn’t have the information.
“They should have had somebody in the town available to answer questions, I understand that this couldn’t be done in the case of a small outage but this was an outage in a major town and we needed to know what was happening, the whole town was affected. I want the ESB to review their communications policy when it comes to something like this.”
Green Party Councillor Brian Meaney described the information supplied by the ESB during the power cut as “sketchy”.
“Accurate information should have been relayed detailing the duration of the problem and the likely time of restoration of power. As it was, many people were left in the dark having the ESB feed their information regarding the going off and on of the power time estimates to the local radio, especially in a situation where a large number were affected in a dense area such as Ennis and where there is huge economic and social disruption is vital.
“No one can say a cut-off won’t happen but people can plan their lives and those of their children, old folks, sick people if there is an accurate time scale disseminated by the ESB through Clare FM.
“The performance was very poor compared to the good work during the floods. Also, what measures have taken place to ensure such a serious outage does not occur again? Any system is only as good as its back-up system.”
According to the ESB, the first outage occurred at 11am following a cable fault which affected approximately 1,000 customers.
“ESB Networks’ crews were immediately dispatched and generators were provided at 5pm to ensure continuity of supply to the majority of affected customers while repair work was being carried out to the damaged cable. It was not possible to restore power to the remaining customers until midnight. In the second case, a cable fault occurred close to Francis Street that led to an outage at 4.15pm. Supply was restored to the affected 500 customers by 6pm,” said a spokesperson for ESB.
When asked about the local concerns about the dissemination of information, the spokesperson for the ESB responded, “These events occurred without warning and could not be circumvented. The crews respond to these events as they arise as rapidly as possible.
“They have to locate the fault and make it safe and repair it as quickly as possible, in tandem with that, we endeavour to inform the public through the local media and through our call centre, providing up to date information.
“Obviously, the customer is our priority and restoring the supply as quickly as possible. Every situation depends on a particular set of circumstances, but our priority is to restore the fault as quickly as possible,” the spokesman said.