The company responsible for maintaining public lighting in Kerry has improved its performance but is still failing to meet contractual obligations.
An update on the performance of the company Electric Skyline in Kerry was presented to county councillors at a meeting.
Director of Services with the council, Frank Hartnett, said he believed the company would be back in line with its service requirement by April.
Mayo-based company Electric Skyline was awarded the Kerry and Cork County public lighting maintenance contract last summer, after the previous contractor Enerveo exited the market.
Enerveo’s exit from the market placed further demand on the limited number of public lighting maintenance contractors nationally.
As part of Electric Skyline’s contract, at least 98.5% of the 13,375 lights in Kerry should be operating at any one time, and any standard reported faults should be repaired within ten working days.
The company’s performance was previously criticised by county councillors, who had highlighted numerous lights that were out for some time, and Kerry County Council had said it was raising these issues with the contractor.
According to an update on the company’s performance, presented to councillors at the recent council meeting, Electric Skyline has reduced the number of faults in Kerry, and reduced the number of outages remaining unfixed for more than ten days.
At the end of January, there were 461 public lighting faults, and 348 outages longer than ten working days; at that stage, around 3.3% of the public lighting in Kerry was not operating.
By the end of February, this had reduced to 2.6%, and the number of outages for longer than ten working days also fell by 45% to 191.
In mid-March, around 2.1% of public lighting was not operating.
At the council meeting, Director of Services Frank Hartnett said the council met with the contractor and expressed its concerns and dissatisfaction.
Mr Hartnett said the company has upped its game and is now very close to its contractual requirement, which it expected them to meet by April.
