People left without power have been told by the ESB they can use facilities in nearby hotels on Wednesday and Thursday as crews work to restore electricity to thousands of households.
Around 4,000 people are still without power while 4,500 are without water, though more sub-zero conditions overnight are expected to cause more disruption.
The entire island was under weather warnings coming into Wednesday morning, with temperatures as low as minus 6C recorded in parts at 9am.
Temperatures were expected to plummet even further to around -8 degrees overnight into Thursday, before conditions begin to improve on Friday and into the weekend.
All of the country is on at least a status yellow low temperature and ice warning until midday on Friday, but more severe alerts will also apply to the vast majority of the country.
Met Éireann said the extremely cold weather runs the risk of dangerous travelling conditions, transport delays and animal welfare issues.
A status orange low temperature and ice warning was in place for most counties overnight and expired at 10am on Wednesday.
Stay safe, informed & prepared by understanding the weather warning meaning for your area & take advice from your local authorities during weather events🥶
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➡️https://t.co/d4K1ltldih pic.twitter.com/7pgqulCc0n— Met Éireann (@MetEireann) January 7, 2025
However, it will be followed by a similar warning for every county except Donegal between 6pm on Wednesday and 11am on Thursday.
Met Éireann said Thursday would be “bitterly cold” with widespread frost, ice and patches of freezing fog.
The ESB said 4,000 homes, farms and businesses are without power and that customers have been told they can use nearby hotel facilities while work is under way to restore their power.
“We obviously appreciate that this is an incredibly difficult time for our customers, particularly in those worst-affected areas,” ESB Networks regional manager Siobhan Wynn told RTÉ Radio.
“So in an effort to try and provide some support to them, we’ve made arrangements with local hotels where people can go to refresh and get a hot meal, recharge their mobile phones.
“That’s going to be available both today and tomorrow.
“We’ve contacted all of the customers directly in those areas so we would have called them yesterday to let them know about this service and to avail of this service they just need to provide their NPRN, that’s their account number on their electricity bill.
“We’re conscious that some of these people could be travelling from areas where there are still hazardous road conditions so we would remind people to only travel if it is safe to do so.”
She said that they are hoping that all those customers will have their power restored by Wednesday night.
“There may be small pockets of customers that run into tomorrow, but absolutely yes the vast majority you would hope that later tonight we would have them back.”
Meanwhile, Uisce Éireann continued to work to restore water to customers in the worst-affected regions, mostly in counties Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary.
The National Emergency Co-ordination Group met on Wednesday morning to discuss the cross-department and agency response to sub-zero hazardous conditions.
The Dublin Region Homeless Executive has a free app and an online form which enables members of the public to alert them to any rough sleepers so that they can be offered a bed or other services.
