Erris plagued by series of persistent power outages

Repeated power outages in the Erris area cannot be allowed to continue, says a local councillor.

The Belmullet area and beyond has been plagued with power cuts over the past year.

“Strangely it wasn’t too bad during the storm but since then it has been very bad,” said Cllr Gerry Coyle.

He vehemently believes that large-scale wind farms in the area are contributing to the ongoing issues.

“I think those windmills have something to do with our electricity. I don’t think the lines are fit to take the power in and out,” said Cllr Coyle.

He said electricity issues that have been going on for more than a year now are unprecedented.

“We never had problems like this no matter what storms we had. It’s been crazy for the last year or two. It would happen in the best of weather, and was nothing to do with bad weather,” Cllr Coyle commented.

Meanwhile, the Erris councillor is demanding that a generator be installed by Uisce following a following a power outage at the local water treatment plant.

Reisents and busineses in Bellacorrick, Kennagh, Ballyglass, Glenamoy, Inver, Doohoma and Geesala experienced low pressure or a disruption to their supply following the outage. “The scandal is that there is no generator for 11,000 people. But I’ll tell you one thing, that’s not going to happen again. I’m going to keep the pressure on until we get that generator,” said Cllr Coyle. “It’s one thing it being off, but the water can’t be purified either when it’s off. Then when the reservoirs go down you obviously can’t pump unpurified water into the system. It’s crazy what happened,” he added.