It has taken an average of 5.3 days to fix public lighting in the Portlaoise area from January to March 2019.
The figures for the first three months of this year were given to Portlaoise municipal area councillors by acting senior executive engineer for Laois County Council, Farham Nasiem.
In January, it took 8.66 days (6.02 working days) to rectify problems with lights.
“There were delays to repair lights in January due to staff leaving and new staff not trained to work on ESB poles,” according to Mr Nasiem’s report.
The days waiting for repairs have lowered as the year has gone o. In February, the average number of days to rectify lighting was 4.06 (3.18 working days).
This was reduced to 3.31 days (2.49 working days) in March 2019.
The report also states that some faults go beyond the scope of works for the public lighting maintenance contractor.
“If the fault is on the ESB Network controlled equipment on ESB poles, Laois County Council’s maintenance contractor cannot fix these faults.
“ESB Networks retains operational control for the switch-wire system on ESB poles,” the report read.
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