Some 4,000 Eircom customers are still waiting to have their phone lines repaired, five weeks after Storm Darwin struck on February 12th.

The south of the country bore the brunt of the damage but the telecommunications firm said it hoped the vast majority of faults would be repaired before the end of next week. Some faults affect both phone and broadband service.

Eircom said 140,000 faults were reported after the storm and it had restored service to about 97 per cent of customers.

“Four thousand customers impacted by the storm are still without service, primarily in the worst-affected storm-damaged counties of Cork, Kerry, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Wexford and Limerick,” a spokeswoman said.

Some 1,100 faults are still outstanding in Co Cork, while 780 customers are affected in Co Limerick. Co Tipperary has the third highest number of faults, at 560. Some 405 faults are outstanding in Co Kerry, 300 in Kilkenny and 200 in Wexford.

Eircom said these customers were waiting the longest because their cases were more complex, involving damage done to poles or cable elsewhere.

“Unfortunately, some faults are dependent upon multiple repairs where pole and cabling damage or destruction is most severe,” the spokeswoman said.

“We expect that the vast majority of customers currently without service as a result of the storm will have service restored before the end of next week.”

She said vulnerable customers and those who have been waiting the longest had been prioritised.

“There are approximately 1,400 staff working to fix faults nationwide, including additional contractors with specialist repair skills who have been brought in to assist,” the spokeswoman said.

She said staffing levels had been increased by up to 30-50 per cent in the worst- affected counties. Asked if affected customers would have phone bills reduced or waived, she said the issue had not arisen yet as bills had not been sent out for that period.