Uisce Éireann is to buy 100 new generators in response to the widespread water outages caused by Storm Éowyn.
Minister for Housing and Local Government James Browne will update the Cabinet on Tuesday on the urgent actions to be taken by the state-owned water utility company including the purchase of the new generators.
At one stage almost 140,000 homes were left without water when the storm hit at the end of January, some did not have their supply returned for three weeks.
Uisce Éireann was established in 2014 and serves 85 per cent of the population with drinking water, 70 per cent with wastewater services, and employs 3,500 people.
The company operates 1,800 water and wastewater treatment plants as well as 4,100 pumping stations and maintains 90,000km of pipelines across the country.
The news as comes as the last customer to have their power restored following Storm Éowyn said getting electricity back was “like Christmas morning”, last week.
Storm Éowyn on January 24th cut electricity supply to more premises than ever before in Ireland, leaving almost 1 million homes, farms, schools and businesses without power across the island.
Mary Meehan from Dunmore in Galway told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that the last few weeks had been very difficult.
She said they “knew there was light at the end of the tunnel” when ESB crews arrived outside her home at 5 pm on Monday.
“It was very difficult, but I suppose like everything else you just learn to adapt to what life throws at you. So I was cooking in my workplace, which is the national school. I was bringing in my slow cooker. I was also doing my washing between there and my sister's house.
“I suppose we found the evenings most difficult when everybody was home again with no proper heat or light for the first 10 to 15 days. And then we got a loan for a generator, which we managed. I suppose you could say we lived very miniscule.”
