This article first appeared on Galway Bay FM

Planned and unplanned power outages in Galway increased by nearly 40 per cent last year.

That’s double the increase in power cuts nationally at 20 per cent

Most of Galway is covered by 2 planner groups  – Galway city and Tuam.

The Galway city group recorded 38 per cent increase in power cuts between 2023 and 2024, going from 1,275 to 1,762

The Tuam group recorded a similar increase of 39 per cent between 2023 and 2024 going from 1400 to 1942

Waterford, Limerick, and Cork had some of the lowest numbers of power cuts

However, across the country outages increased by more than 20 per cent with almost 65 thousand power cuts last year

The reasons for the planned and unplanned outages included weather issues, however there was a large increase attributed to ‘defective equipment’.

Ireland South Fianna Fáil MEP Cynthia Ní Mhurchú, who obtained the figures, is calling for clarity from ESB Networks on why the jump in outages occurred: