Woman left ‘black and blue’ after fall on road with no street lights
Picture for illustration purposes
A CARLOW town resident was left “black and blue” following a terrible fall outside her home, on a busy street that’s been left without public lighting for ten weeks.
Green Lane, Carlow has been plunged into darkness for weeks, between the Circle K service station and Nua Manufacturing at the former Braun site, with not a single street light currently working on either side of the road.
“I am honestly sick to the teeth of it. I’ve rang the council loads of times to report it and there’s been no explanation, no reason for it … nothing,” said Marie O’Connor from Sycamore Road, Rathnapish, whose home fronts onto Green Lane.
“Four weeks ago, I had an awful fall. The bins are collected at ten to five and I went out to get the bin and it was total darkness. I couldn’t see anything and reached out for the bin but fell over the footpath … it was an awful fall, I was black and blue all down my right side,” explained Marie.
Marie states that over the ten weeks the public lights have come on briefly three times, but “you’d get more light coming out of a candle”.
“I thought at least that was something, but then they were gone again,” she adds.
Carlow County Council is responsible for the provision and maintenance of public lighting in the county, including street lighting. The local authority recently awarded a contract for basic repairs and maintenance of street lighting to Kilkenny-based company KLS; however, more fundamental faults with supply to public lighting are carried out by ESB Networks.
“We received a report in early December of a fault between Circle K and O’Brien Road,” confirmed Padraig O’Gorman, director of services at Carlow County Council to .
“Usually when a fault is reported, KLS would call out to it and it would usually take within a couple of weeks to repair, but in this case it is an issue with the power supply and we are waiting for ESB Networks to carry out the work,” he stated.
Mr O’Gorman said that while ESB Networks is aware of the issue, he suggested that the aftermath of Storm Darragh had placed ESB Networks under considerable pressure over recent weeks.
