Italian crew may still be needed to fix lights on Offaly bridge

Extensive civil works are set to get underway at Rahan Bridge,in Offaly where traffic lights have been out of action for a long period of time.

At the June meeting of Tullamore Municipal District, Senior Executive Engineer Joe Dooley explained that the original installer of the lights was Italian, and, unfortunately, he has since passed away. Mr Dooley said an Italian crew may now be needed to fix the problem.

At this month's meeting, Mr Dooley reported that the fault has finally been located. But he wasn’t quite ready to close the book on the matter just yet.

''We still may need someone to come from Italy for that lads,'' he said.''We found the fault with the cable. We have replaced the ducting, it was inadequate under the ground, we have put in new chambers and a new cable, that will tell us then if the guy from Italy needs to come or not.''

If all goes according to plan, the lights should be operational early this week.

''We are now going to resurface the bridge with stone mastic asphalt overlay. It is balding,'' Mr Dooley continued.''Resurfacing is scheduled for next Thursday. The lights will work and will default to the timer, but once the loops go back in Monday week, we will have the lights back fully functional and fully complete on the Rahan Bridge and we can walk away from it then.”

Councillor Oliver Bryant congratulated Mr Dooley and asked if work could be extended to the Thatch as that is the first stop on the Greenway for snacks, coffee or bathroom. Mr Dooley said he will look into it further.

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