Council agrees to put religious shrines in spotlight

Director of Services, Michael Timmons, brought a draft public lighting proposal which set-out for the first time the criteria by which County Councillors can use their €18,500 annual stipend for the provision of public lights in their area.

The policy document seeks to “foster coordination and consistency in design for the installation and maintenance of high quality energy efficient street lighting throughout County Galway.”

It set out nine policy objectives, including that, “Public lighting proposals will only be considered for roads or public spaces/carparks which are in the charge of Galway County Council.”

This proved controversial, however, and a number of Councillors spoke out against it, claiming it was too restrictive.

Pat Hynes (Ind) said he had received representations from members of the community urging the Council not to exclude places of worship, such as grottos, from the plans for lighting.

He said there were two holy places in particular, where locals wished to have public lighting installed – the abbey near Woodford and the grotto near Kilnadeema.

He said these places of pilgrimage and worship were very important to the community, and were very important part of the culture of County Galway – the will of the people should not be ignored, insisted Cllr Hynes.

Michael Fahy (Ind) supported this view and the pair managed to amend the plan to include places of worship.

Michael Connolly and his Fianna Fáil colleague Mary Hoade were also successful in having schools, community centres and businesses in rural areas included as potential sites that can be considered for street lighting.

Cllr Connolly said small rural pubs, and other businesses, were the lifeblood of the community and many were paying thousands in rates per year – it was not fair that they were excluding from the policy, he said.

The policy said public lighting on national roads cannot be considered; and will only be considered where the statutory speed limit is up to 80 kilometres per hour.

“Public lighting will only be considered in situations of infill, extension and/or upgrade of existing lighting schemes,” it said.

Michael Timmins said typically, new street lights where a pole doesn’t already exist would cost in the region of €4,000; and roughly €1,000 if a pole does exist.

He noted also that in addition to the capital outlay, there is an ongoing annual cost to the Council of providing new streetlights.