Independent Councillor Terry O’Flaherty has received a number of complaints from residents of several areas in Renmore that the public lighting in their area is out of order.
Cllr O'Flaherty went out to check on Monday night to see which areas are in darkness due to street lights being out of order.
The lights in question in Renmore are in Elm Park, Blackthorn Park, part of Rowan Avenue, Fuchsia Drive and Hawthorn Drive, plus two lights in Ballyloughane Road. According to Cllr O’Flaherty there are similar problems in many other parts of the city.
When she reported this issue to Galway City Council, she was told that, in order to fix the problem, the local authority would have to apply for funding to replace the old cabling that had been in place since the construction of the first homes in Renmore move than half a century ago.
Following her contact with the engineer in charge of the public lighting, the response she received from the council is that crews have been actively working to resolve this issue as best they could.
“The issue is that the cabling has been damaged at these locations," Cllr O'Flaherty said. "The infrastructure [cable, columns] is 50-plus years old and is non-compliant with current regulations and standards and cannot be repaired and certified in its current state."
Galway City Council said in a reply to Cllr O'Flaherty that it was required to replace the current non-compliant cabling with new up to standard cabling, however this requires substantial investment and large-scale civil works which could take some time to fully resolve. The council it was actively working to resolve this fault as fast as possible but it could take several weeks to fix the problem.
Cllr O’Flaherty said when the city council are granting opening licences to the various utility companies that are given permission to open roads and footpaths, that a proper check should be carried out once the works are completed.
“It appears that when an underground cable breaks, no-one is held responsible to fix the problem and it is left to the city council to deal with it this and it’s about time that something is done about this situation. It seems to be a very loose arrangement," she added.
“This is a very serious situation, and something should be done about it,” she added.
