THE local authority now manages and maintains 23,577 lights and their associated infrastructure throughout Limerick city and county.
The figure was revealed when Independent councillor Jerome Scanlan asked at this month’s Newcastle West area meeting for Limerick City and County Council (LCCC) to review its service contract with its public lighting providers.
According to Senior Executive Engineer with the council’s Roads, Traffic and Cleansing Department, Seamas O’Reilly, there were 319 noted faults within the network on December 12 last year — corresponding to 1.3 per cent of the overall network.
“The requirements for ESB presence on site is necessary to comply with safety standards from Safe Electric that must be adhered to,” Mr O’Reilly explained.
“We have escalated a number of cases to the ESB and we are working closely with their engineers on the ground, who have committed to facilitate us in so far as they can.
“We are continuing to proactively manage these issues and are working closely with our maintenance contractor (Enervo) and the ESB to get these items closed out in a timely manner.
“It should be noted that ESB is not a contractor/supplier to Limerick City and County Council,” the meeting heard.
The council confirmed that the remaining 199 faults continue to be proactively managed and repaired.
“As with all maintenance contracts, there are and will continue to be challenges encountered which will be managed in conjunction with our maintenance provider. In the last number of years, we have switched to actively installing full LED heads, as opposed to replacing existing outdated technology. This impacts the time required to service lights but will improve energy usage and avoid paying for duplicate retrofits at the same location when considering the upcoming Public Lighting Energy Efficiency Project (PLEEP) contract.”
