Linda Duffin reports: "As fast as the faults are mended, new ones are being found"

Over 25,000 homes have had to be reconnected following the weekend storms which left five dead. But in some parts of the country, customers were still without electricity.

The Met Office is warning of more gale force winds in the north and west of the UK with winds predicted at 80 miles an hour.

In Scotland, power chiefs said they were being hampered by the weather and problems gaining access to remote areas because of fallen trees and debris.

A spokesman for ScottishPower said that several thousand outstanding customers would have their power supplies restored on Tuesday.

Repairs have been hampered by the weather

The worst-affected areas remained the largely rural districts of south Ayrshire, south Lanarkshire, Dumfries and Galloway through to Edinburgh, according to engineers' reports.

And Scottish Hydro-Electric said that around 1,000 of its customers in the Mull of Kintyre, Arran, Bute and Dunoon areas would also be reconnected on Tuesday.

Northern Ireland in the dark

Meanwhile, beleaguered electricity chiefs in Northern Ireland faced new pressures as engineers struggled to restore supplies.

Senior NIE officials came under fire from all sides over the time it was taking to restore power in the province.

Some 30 linesmen have been drafted in from Britain to help with repair work in freezing cold and fog, but the service may not be back to normal until Wednesday at the earliest.

More than 40,000 homes were reconnected on Monday while 10,000 more were left without power. Water supplies were also hit because of electricity failures at pumping stations.

About 500 electricity poles were broken by the force of the fierce Boxing Night storms which also caused millions of pounds of damage to property.

More rain will hit western parts on Tuesday

But after thousands of families were left in the dark last Christmas because of a violent storm, NIE management was accused of being far too slow off the mark to deal directly with anxious customers caught up in the latest crisis.

With Met Office warnings of more gale force winds of up to 80 mph and rain there were bitter complaints after the company's automated emergency answering machine broke down.

Chief Executive Patrick Haren said the extent and nature of the damage to the network was the worst since l961.

He hoped the vast majority of the remaining 10,000 customers would have their supply reconnected soon.

Some homes in the Kendal area of Cumbria were still in the dark on Tuesday after Norweb connected 4,000 households.