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Irish Independent

Louth internet outage: Thousands left in dark for days as card machines fail

He said that a 'major fault' had impacted customers in Castlebellingham, Annagassan, Dromin, Mooretown and surrounding areas for almost a week, resulting in mayhem in local shops and hospitality establishments as card machines wouldn't work. 'The internet went down on Sunday June 15 for some people and then others began reporting lack of service in the days following. Getting information on what was happening proved very difficult and that is something that needs to be addressed with large service providers, ' he said, adding that ' in this case it was Eir.' 'Our lives now are dependent on decent broadband and internet especially for businesses and those who work from home.' He told how payment card machines wouldn't work, 'causing mayhem in shops and hospitality establishments' and 'making a farce of attempts for a cashless society. ' Those with digital televisions reliant on decent broadband to stream programmes were also affected. 'We are reliant on internet for communication in almost everything we do,' he said, describing how a local school was unable to make or receive phone calls. He was also aware of a student who had to do exams online and was stressed that the service wouldn't be restored in time for him to do them as there was no information coming from Eir. 'Faults can happen and in fairness Eir was in the area working on it within a very short time but thousands of their customers were left in the dark as to what the problem was and more importantly, when it would be fixed. That lack of certainty can cause disruption in people's lives and their businesses; that lack of communication can cause frustration in customers.' 'It was hard to get any information and Eir had nothing on its website or social media accounts acknowledging there was a fault or that it was being addressed,' he continued. 'The last item on their X and Facebook accounts was a slogan saying 'connection is everything' and their @Eircare page hadn't been updated since Christmas. Eir and big companies like this need to do better when it comes to communicating with their customer base,' he said. 'The fault was caused by a third party and Eir required a licence to dig up the road where the fibre break was located. I am hearing that service has been restored to most customers today (Friday 20) which will be a huge relief to all those affected but a bit of communication would have eased a lot of the frustration.'