How many people does it take to change a light bulb in Offaly?

NEARLY 300 public lights across Offaly are not working, a meeting of the County Council was told on Monday.

That is a failure rate three times higher than should be the case, a senior engineer told councillors at their March meeting.

There are 9,276 public lights in the county and one councillor said that if repair rates continue disimproving, the number out of order could double.

Another councillor pointed out that new lights which had been installed at a public car park late last year had never been switched on.

Barry Lennon, senior engineer, reported that there is a 3.1% percentage rate of faults across the county network, “or 292 lighting units that require an intervention”.

A specialist contractor carries out the work for the council but because 62% of the outages are on ESB poles, they need consent from the ESB to work in and around those units.

A total of 111 lights are currently being repaired, councillors heard.

Cllr Declan Harvey, Fianna Fail, said there was definitely a problem with getting lights fixed and where previously the contractor was “very sharp in fixing them”, at the moment it “seems to be gone a little bit pear shaped”.

Cllr John Clendennen agreed with the Fianna Fail member and said they were now seeing more and more lights out.

“I just don't think what is happening is totally unacceptable. We need to have a serious discussion with our contractor,” said the Fine Gael councillor.

Cllr Clendennen claimed Offaly was running at six or seven times the normal average for lights out.

He also recalled that he had proposed converting the network to LED (light emitting diode) lights and it was his understanding at the time that they provided better lighting and reduced maintenance.

“Instead we seem to be achieving the contrary. Not only are we seeing one or two lights out in isolation, we're seeing collective groups of lighting out in multiple towns and villages.”

He mentioned Syngefield and Johns Mall in Birr town, along with Kinnitty, Cadamstown, Clareen and “every single town and village”.

Some lights had been out since before Christmas, said the Kinnitty councillor, and an app which is used to report faults needed to be upgraded because claims that lights were fixed had sometimes been disputed by local residents.

He said the 3% failure rate had worsened and in six months it could climb to 6%.

Cllr John Leahy, Independent, also asked if the cost benefit of installing the LED lights had yet been reached, while another Independent, Cllr Ken Smollen, said it now appeared to be weeks before repairs took place.

Cllr Smollen said new lights at a car park on the Daingean Road in Tullamore, where public lighting is very important for the safety of women and children, had never even been activated.

“Those lights have been installed, they're there for at least six months,” said Cllr Smollen.

“Surely the ESB should come back and give us some kind of a timeline. We're almost out of the winter months now when they should have been activated months ago.”

Cllr Noel Cribbin, Fine Gael, said the delay in repairs was now an ongoing issue and it was taking months.

Cllr Cribbin said he had made reports using the app but it appeared to him either the app was not being looked at or the contractor was not listening to the council.

Tom Shanahan, director of service, said the same maintenance contract had been in place for almost three years and the issue with repairs was “contractual”.

Mr Shanahan accepted it was very frustrating but said there were “some genuine reasons for it”.

The council director added: “That contract is due for renewal later this year as well.”

Mr Lennon recognised what he called a “marked decrease” in the quality of the service since December 2022.

“One per cent of our lighting stock is contractually what is allowed to be out at any one time. We're currently at 3%,” said the engineer, adding that they were trying to get it back up as soon as possible.

The issue with having contractor staff assessed and approved by the ESB “to go up on specific lights at specific locations around ESB cables” had caused “this slight delay that we're currently experiencing”.

A light going out could be caused by a failure of the power source which requires “another intervention by another stakeholder”, said Mr Lennon.

Some of the lights were out due to a vehicle striking a pole and the pole had been re-erected but the light hadn't been put back.

Mr Lennon said in Tullamore a lot of the poles had been replaced by third party utility providers but the lights weren't re-erected on the poles.

“Three per cent is beyond what we want or expect.”

In relation to the transition to LED, he expected that by October of this year 90% of the total stock will be completed on the way to a “full LED solution”. Currently 4,014 of the lights are LED units.