Clare Fine Gael TD Joe Cooney has discovered that the source of 11 power cuts near the County Clare town of Sixmilebridge over the past 14 months was not a faulty transformer or storm damage but woodpeckers attacking electricity poles.
Mr Cooney had asked ESB Networks to explain the repeated outages, which he said had caused significant inconvenience for householders in Clogga, a townland located to the east of Sixmilebridge. Eight interruptions were recorded in 2025, including two multi‑day losses of supply in January and November. Three more outages followed in January 2026.
In its response, ESB Networks said its staff were “very conscious of the continuity issues” experienced locally and confirmed that a major upgrade of the network is now under way. The company said the unusual problem stemmed from woodpeckers boring into wooden poles, which had weakened them to the point that they had to be replaced.
“At issue here is woodpeckers. They have been damaging our poles on the network,” the company said in its response to Deputy Cooney. “Our colleagues are replacing these wooden poles with a composite pole in order to prevent woodpecker damage going forward.”
ESB Networks said the work would require further planned outages, which would be staggered to “minimise the disruption to the customer”. It added that customers would receive advance notice of any interruptions.
“We apologise to customers for the inconvenience here, and thank them for their forbearance,” the company said. It added that the upgrade would lead to “improved resilience and continuity in the local network into the future”.