Luas services further suspended after damage from ex-Hurricane Ophelia

 Luas services have been suspended until Wednesday morning after a technical room required to operate the trams was damaged in the storm.

The company confirmed that the trams will not be running until tomorrow morning at the earliest after Storm Ophelia caused damage to the Red Cow depot. Services on the Red and Green lines were first suspended from lunchtime on Monday as the storm hit the capital. The public transport company had been expected to resume service by mid-day on Tuesday. But now services are expected to resume at 5.30am on Wednesday at the earliest after a technical room was damaged during the storm. A statement on the Luas website published on Tuesday read:

"Luas services will resume tomorrow morning at 5.30am. "Hurricane Ophelia damaged the roof on the Red Cow depot yesterday at approximately 14:30 "The roof is being repaired today - the firm contracted to repair the roof have estimated it will take the whole day. "The section of roof damaged is over what is known as technical rooms. "Within those rooms are Luas systems. Those systems, for example, assist with overhead power and the AVLS, which is the automatic vehicle location system. "These are necessary to run the Luas operation. "These rooms and systems are being assessed for damage and assessed in relation to possible repair. "It is therefore not possible for Luas services to resume at this point."