(Wednesday, 21st January 2009)

The true extent of the damage to eircom’s nationwide network from the severe weather conditions has now become clear. Since the Storm Recovery Plan has been activated, more than 6,000 faults have been cleared. Despite these efforts by 1,400 staff working on the ground, an additional 4,000 faults have been reported in the past 24 hours. The current number of total faults stands at more than 11,000.

The storm damage nationwide is severe and continues to impact every county in Ireland with Dublin being the only exception. While there are no communities complete isolated, North Mayo is the worst affected with more than 600 faults. The Western seaboard Louth, South Kilkenny and Waterford remain badly affected.

Our call centres continue to handle an exceptionally high level of calls. Additional customer service representatives have been put in place to help deal with the increased call levels.

Customers are reminded that faults can be logged on the "Log a Fault" section of our website (www.eircom.ie) or through our automated customer service line 1901. Faults can be reported to either of these services 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

eircom would like to assure all of our customers that we have put our full resources into restoring service as soon as possible and many of our staff continue to work in very harsh weather to repair faults. Given the high level of faults and the extent of the damage, at this point we expect it could take until late next week to restore service to many customers.