Council paying €1,000 a week for lighting maintenance

Council paying €1,000 a week for lighting maintenance


Anton McNulty

WESTPORT Town Council are paying nearly €1,000 per week for the maintenance of public lighting but the service was criticised by some councillors who claim that some lights were out for four months before they were repaired.
The maintenance of the public lighting is provided by Airtricity who took over from ESB last year but the takeover has not been a smooth process. Councillors at last week’s meeting of Westport Town Council complained that a number of lights in the town were left in darkness for weeks before they were fixed.
Cllr Christy Hyland who was the most vocal in his criticism of the service said that a light on the Newport Road was out for four months before it was fixed and another light on the Distillery Road was out, six weeks after it was fixed.
“If that is accepted as a good service by the Council, I won’t accept it. I am not telling lies and I want to know what kind of money is paid for maintaining the lights,” he asked.
Iarla Moran, engineer with Mayo County Council told the meeting that there are 850 lights in Westport and each town council pays €50,000 per year for the maintenance of the lights. He said the service had improved on what it was and explained that a new tender for the service would ensure that lights will have to be fixed within ten days of the problem being raised.
Cllr Hyland said it seemed that the Council were happy with the service but the people in Westport needed to be told how much tax-payers’ money was being paid to Airtricity.
The tender for the maintenance of the lights will take place before the end of the year and Town Manager Joe Beirne explained that the Council will be taking a zero tolerance stance with whoever wins the contract to ensure lights are fixed quickly.
Fine Gael councillor Myles Staunton said that the only way to ensure this will happen is to hit the companies in the pocket and to hold money if they are not maintaining the lights.
“I was pleased to see the new tender go out and the only way to deal with them is to hit them in the pocket. It is clearly set out in the UK that the contract terms are in favour of the local authority when tendering,” he said.
Cllr Ollie Gannon concurred with Cllr Hyland that the service was not acceptable and added that the quality lighting in 60 per cent of estates was very poor. Cllr Michael McLaughlin asked Mr Moran how many companies were capable of providing a service and if Airtricity had the monopoly of the market. Cllr Brendan Mulroy said he would like to see a local contractor get the contract to look after the Westport lights because they would be able to deal with the problem at source and it would send out the best message at a time of high unemployment.
Mr Moran said he expects up to ten companies to tender in Mayo and believed that the company that is chosen will look after the whole county. “The problem with lighting is that it is a small section and is not cost effective to open up to towns the size of Westport. Even Galway has not got the mass lighting to carry that out. There will be three or four national companies but I hope local companies will tender,” he concluded.