Councillors 'getting it in the neck' over lack of public lighting in Tullamore
Public lighting is 'out' all over the town, last week's meeting of Tullamore Municipal District heard.
Councillor Sean O'Brien said, ''we are getting it in neck from all sorts of areas in the town.''
He said there are two blocks in darkness in the Arden View estate for some time. ''Practically all of the lights are not functioning. Those who are elderly are afraid of the darkness, afraid they will lose their footing. Cllr O'Brien said it has been going on for ''months on end. I have logged it on the site ['DeadSure App] they are all on there. I have been in contact with the manager and the roads department in the council, they have written to the contractor, nothing seems to be happening. I think the public are losing faith with us as councillors. We talk about doing big projects, multi-million euro projects and we can't fix a light,'' he said.
Cathaoirleach, Councillor Declan Harvey said,''we don't seem to be getting a handle on it. I'm disappointed with the way things are going with the lights. People are terrified of this, young and old, they are used to lights now.''
Councillor Neil Feighery, said the ''DeadSure App that we are all being advised to use, is a dead duck as far as I'm concerned. It's just not working. We need to come up with some sort of a better scheme. The ESB have shown themselves to be a bit of a laggard too in some cases where they are not getting around to fixing the lights,'' said Cllr Feighery.
Councillor Frank Moran said, people ''have had a light outside their home for umpteen years and the next minute it's gone. Cllr Moran said, ''Offaly County Council approved €5 million for the replacement of all the lighting to LED lighting. ''Would that be having an impact on the maintenance?'' he asked. ''€5 million over 3 to 5 years was a huge amount of funding, that Offaly County Council as whole approved.''
Councillor Tony McCormack said, ''We can't even get in contact with the people we have contracts with. It looks like they have downed tools and have forgotten about us. We can't leave it until we have somebody else employed to look after this. We need to grab the bull by the horns and make contact with them in some way, shape, or form, to find out are they going to do it, or have they reneged on their contract. If they have I would look at the finance department to hold back any payment that is due to them. Sometimes when you hit them in the pocket it might get them to focus their attention fairly quickly. We have to look at another alternative between this and then,'' he said.
Director of Services Tom Shanahan said, ''We are under contract with a company. They had a very good track record. When they started to lose resources, they quickly started to recruit new resources. This is not a reflection of the company, it's reflection of the market. Everybody is struggling with resources.''
Anybody that works in public lights obviously have to be qualified electricians, they have to be certified by the ESB. They also have to be trained in road and sign management, he explained.
''As we speak today, there are 2 % of the total 9,200 lights out of order,'' said Mr Shanahan. He said the workers will be in the district for the next few days and over the weekend. ''They are putting in additional resources. We hope to see an improvement very quickly and that it can be sustained,'' he said.
Councillor Tony McCormack said this answer wasn't good enough. ''We have to have some sort of alternative body or group that will be able to go out and sort out those lights. We can't expect people to be living in fear waiting for months to get lights fixed. We can't sit idly by and listen to a managing director saying, 'yea I'm terrible sorry but unfortunately I don't have the manpower.' When will he have the manpower? We need to get it done and that's the bottom line. I will be asking the executive to look at alternative ways of doing this,'' he added.
Councillor Frank Moran suggested that when a new contract is being drawn up that a performance clause is added.