Waterford housing estate has been in darkness for seven weeks 

A housing estate in Dungarvan has been in darkness for seven weeks.

Councillors, at the March sitting of the Dungarvan-Lismore District Council, raised the plight of residents in the Childers Estate in Dungarvan, who are now experiencing a complete outage.

Cllr Kate O’Mahoney first raised the issue and asked that the council get commitments from the contractor.

Lighting outages in this estate have been a consistent issue for the last few months but a complete outage is completely unacceptable and not fair on the residents,” said Cllr O’Mahoney.

Cllr Joe O’Riordan said he supported Cllr O’Mahoney’s call.

“The light has been out for seven weeks. It comes on it goes off, it comes on, it goes off. It's become a real source of concern for some of the elderly residents in particular who can't see their hands in front of their faces.

“I appreciate there is a major fault there but can we do something to get a quicker response from those with the wherewithal to fix the lights,” said Cllr O’Riordan.

Cllr Damien Geoghegan said the residents in Childers Estate feel “ignored.” But he said their experience is a common one across the county.

Cllr Geoghegan said he accepted these were not simple fixes but still something does need to be done.

“It’s unacceptable as far as I’m concerned. I think it's supposed to be fixed within 10 working days I think that’s the terms of the contract. That’s what it used to be in the past and it was much more effective. But we certainly seem to have a problem with our public lighting,” said Cllr Geoghegan.

Cllr Thomas Phelan reiterated the call from last month for a report on outstanding lighting issues.

Senior Engineer Gabriel Hynes said they can provide a quarterly report.

He said the timeline referenced by Cllr Geoghegan is correct but only for standard faults, which these are not.

“We have an underground system that is not fit for purpose. We inherited it from the ESB and in a lot of situations we are getting cable faults and in particular in Childers Estate, if you get a cable fault, it can take a while to repair it, said Mr Hynes.

He went on the explain that if the issue is the cabling repairing one end can blow the other.

Faulty cabling needs to be replaced but the cables are not in ducts and repair works are disruptive and costly.

“So look we have a significant issue without public lighting throughout the city and county. Currently, we have an LED contractor to replace the lights with LED lights and that is underway. After that, we are going to have to look at our underground system and we will have to go cap in hand to the government to bring it up to an acceptable standard, said Mr Hynes.

In the interim he said, they are repairing faults in estates with significant issues where resources will allow.

He said they would prioritise Childers Estate.

Mt Hynes also said Waterford is no different from any other local authority.

“We are all in the same boat. We all inherited a public lighting system from the ESB which is now at the end of life and is challenging for us to keep it repaired and to keep the lights at an acceptable standard,” said Mr Hynes.