ESB works to go ahead in Bagenalstown but moves are being made to try avoid impacting festivities in the Co Carlow town

Bagenalstown will still be affected by power outages on Saturday but the ESB have promised to have their upgrade work finished as early as possible in the day.

The utility has a multi-million euro project scheduled to update the local supply this week but it’s feared that the temporary power cuts will affect local communion and confirmation celebrations at the weekend.

Cllr Andy Gladney was among local representatives in talks yesterday to see if a compromise could be reached.

He says they’re doing everything they can to minimise the impact, telling KCLR News “They’re bringing in extra crews into it and instead of starting at half-past eight they’re starting an hour earlier, at half-past seven, the reason why they’re doing only half-past seven is because the mornings are not very bright now and because of what these specialist people are in doing, high tension cables, it’s not possible for them to work in the dark as you can understand, it’s very dangerous work”.

He adds “They’re hoping then to lot of it done, all going well, they’ll have a lot of it maybe connected back in certain areas at half-past one as the day goes on they’d be hoping to have it connected, all going to plan again, shortly after 3 o’clock and if everything goes according to plan for them it maybe before 3 o’clock, look it, this is the only conclusion they can come up with, they just can’t cancel this”.