ESB Networks says its has found and fixed the fault causing frequent outages in Bohermeen, Ardbraccan areas

ESB Networks has apologised for the disruption to "family and commercial life" caused by recent multiple power outages in the Bohermeen, Ardbraccan and Ongenstown areas.

Regular unplanned electricity outages have been causing major problems for local houses and businesses the latest coming just at the weekend gone (23rd/25th August).

There have been ongoing problems in the area over many months and last week, there were several outages at the Abbeylands connection point leading to serious disruption for local residents.

Joe Leahy of Newgate Stores said he had to spend €12,000 on a generator the outages were happening so often.

"I have had a circuit board and a hard drive in the till damaged because of the power outages.

"Whenever the power goes off, we cannot use the card machine for payments. It is a nightmare, it goes off at odd times. Sometimes it is for five or ten minutes but every time it goes off it is likely to blow something

"It has happened three or four times in the last ten days. There are times when it has gone off for a number of hours. There seems to be a fault on our line.

"It is very hard to run a business when there are these unexplained outages and you don't know when the power will come back on.

"If you ring ESB networks, you just get a recorded message saying what time it will be back on, but about an hour before it is due back on there will be a new message putting it back further.

"After the big storm earlier this year, our house was without power for six and a half days.

"It is now just a problem for us, but everyone in the area," he said.

Greetiagh publican, Kevin McHugh, said their power had been off a number of time last week.

"A couple of years ago a power cut badly damaged one of our tills and a cooler,.

"It happens often , but luckily enough for us it has so far been mostly outside of our trading times. It is a big problem for everyone and there is the risk of damage when it comes back on."

In a statement to Meath Chronicle, ESB Networks said:

"ESB Networks can confirm that several recent outages were caused by a piece of equipment on the network experiencing intermittent faults.

"Unfortunately, due to their nature intermittent faults are difficult to locate on the network. Over the past few days, the network was sectionalised to narrow down the location of the intermittent fault.

"Local crews identified an area and have replaced transformers to clear the fault."

"We acknowledge the disruption to family and commercial life this causes and thank our customers for their patience."