Residents still in the dark as Tipperary estate without public lighting for weeks
Residents in parts of Tipperary town have been left in complete darkness for weeks, prompting renewed calls for public lighting to be restored.
Residents in the Avondale Crescent and Father Matthew Street areas of Tipperary town have been without lights for a number of weeks now, due to a major upgrade project on the N74.
At the November meeting of the Tipperary-Cahir-Cashel Municipal District, Sinn Féin councillor Annemarie Ryan raised the “very dangerous” issue, calling for an investigation to be done to find the root cause of the issue.
"My understanding is that there’s a cable broken, that happened during the N74 Father Matthew Street works and it did cause an outage,” Cllr Ryan said.
"The lights in the area came back for a day, then they were gone again, and they’ve been gone for a number of weeks now, and it’s pitch black down there.
"If it’s not possible to get a date to fix those lights, can we put a light down there? There were two light towers on the N74, but they’ve been removed. The residents have been in the dark for three weeks if not more at this stage, and it’s very dangerous,” Cllr Ryan added.
Fine Gael councillor Mary Hanna Hourigan said that elderly people who live in that area are at a particular risk.
"My issue is for everybody living there but in particular for Cluain Arann Residential Unit because there are some people there who are active and are able to walk in and out and go down the town as they’re full-time residents there,” she said.
Previously, it was reported by the Irish Independent that two elderly residents had fallen as a result of no public lighting.
Agreeing with Cllrs Ryan and Hourigan, Fine Gael councillor John Crosse said that the lack of public lighting is frustrating for people living in the area.
“It is frustrating for the people that are living down there, but Michael Wolfe, who is an engineer for the Old Cashel Road project, and he said they hope it would be a week at most before we see the lights back on down there, and there was significant progress made on the issue this morning,” Cllr Crosse said.
"He did also say that it was totally outside the capital works, so if that’s something that we as a district have to look at, that’s a concern,” the Fine Gael councillor added.
"When we changed providers [for public lighting] over a year ago, we were guaranteed a better service, but I’m afraid I can’t report any better services, so somebody has to be held accountable. People need to feel safe when they’re walking down the town or out their back or front doors,” Cllr Crosse said.
Independent councillor Máirín McGrath agreed, saying service seemed to have “gone backwards”.
"We were told when we changed contractors last year that we’d get a better service, but I think it’s gone backwards to be honest, and now the council contractors and ESB contractors can’t be working in the same municipal district (MD),” Cllr McGrath said.
"We’ve three towns in our MD, as big as some local authorities full stop, it’s totally dysfunctional,” she hit out.