There has been commuter chaos across Cork City and its suburbs this evening after a major traffic light outage.

Traffic lights across a number of major Cork routes failed, including on some of the city’s busiest junctions.

Other areas affected outside the city centre include Douglas, Blackpool and Wilton.

Some traffic lights can be put back online remotely via the control room in Cork city but traffic crews were also deployed across the city to manually fix the ones that could not be repaired remotely, Cork City Council said. 

Most lights at major junctions within the city have since been fixed and are now functioning properly again with Cork City Council aiming to fix the smaller junctions next.

Traffic on the N40 Eastbound is still significant with cars backed up from the Jack Lynch tunnel to Douglas Village Shopping Centre. Westbound is, however, running smoothly.

Local reports pointed out some dangerous driving near Wilton and Douglas areas.

The council says it cannot put a time on when drivers can expect service to resume as normal.

Motorists have been asked to proceed with caution.