Kerry councillor blames ESB for public light that’s been in darkness for a year
The KerrymanESB was under the microscope at a recent Kerry County Council meeting as it was revealed nearly 12 months had passed since they were tasked with fixing a public light.
Councillor John O’Donoghue slammed the delays to repairing a public light in Clonkeen as ‘shameful’ and warned it was not an isolated incident.
The concerns over the maintenance of public lights were previously raised by north Kerry councillors who found the council’s public light contractor, Electric Skyline, was failing to meet its response targets.
At a recent Killarney MD meeting, Cllr O’Donoghue said a public light outside Our Lady of The Wayside Church in Clonkeen had just been fixed after being out of action for 12 months.
When the fault was initially reported, he said, the council quickly established the issue was the ESB’s responsibility, but the ‘relatively simple’ job of fixing a cable wasn’t done for nearly 12 months.
“In the grand scheme of things, that was not a huge job and the fact we were waiting 12 months for it at a public building, which is used predominantly by elderly people, is completely unacceptable,” said Cllr O’Donoghue.
“Before it was fixed, I contacted the residents the week before to tell them that, thankfully, their light was going to be fixed and I was actually embarrassed when they started thanking me for getting it sorted.”
“I believe this is becoming a repeated issue and I feel that we really need to do something about it…to be waiting 12 months for light to be fixed is not acceptable at all.”
Councillor Niall Kelleher said he had also raised the issue of lights that had been out for several years and argued some of the lights did not appear in the council’s maintenance report.
“I don’t have massive faith in the report,” he said.
“This leads to continuous and repetitive calls by elected members to the public lighting section, to the ESB, to different people, which does take up time and resources.”
“Its good news for those in Clonkeen but it is not a good news story for how we deal with light maintenance.”
Councillor Jimmy Moloney previously said the complex arrangement of ownership over public lighting is contributing to the missing of maintenance targets.
The majority of public lighting poles are owned by ESB, with some owned by Kerry County Council (KCC) and others private, while the actual lights themselves are owned by the council.
The ongoing maintenance of the lights is then the responsibility of Electric Skyline, one of the main public lighting contractors.