Darkness reigns on Athy street

Work is going on behind the scenes to get lights on Duke Street in Athy shining again after a lengthy period out of service. Senator Mark Wall told the Kildare Nationalist last Friday afternoon that they’ve been out for at least three months and shared his concerns.

“It’s very dangerous in my opinion,” he said. “I’ve been contacted by a lot of people who work late in Athy, they're doing deliveries, they're working in the local pubs et cetera, and they're walking that street say at 1 o'clock in the morning or after 12 anyway, and they have fears and it's rightly so.

“There's three lights out and it is extremely, extremely dark on that street. You have a light at the post office, but that's the last light then until you get to the corner of Woodstock Street. It's missing three lights in that stretch of road.” 

The Labour politician said they’ve been onto Kildare Co Council “for the last three, maybe going on four months now”. 

On 7 August he was informed via email that these lights are on ESB Network columns and the new maintenance contractors were not yet approved to work on them. ‘They are being audited this week to get the approvals. ESB has said that no work can proceed on their network until the electricians are approved,’ he was told at that time.

An email received by Senator Wall last Friday explained that the ESB audit was completed and they should have been fixed by now.

“I share the fears of those people working late in the town of Athy that the main street is in darkness when they're coming out late at night after – and also those people using those premises late at night as well,” the Labour politician said.

“It's totally acceptable that it's taken four months... [cllr] Aoife [Breslin] will be talking to the council, I will be talking to the council as well that when the next contract comes up, something like this can never happen again. Whatever about any other lights, the main street lights in the town need to be fixed and fixed urgently once they go out.”