Fine Gael Councillor Barry Walsh has called on Laois County Council to engage with the ESB in requesting a central point of contact for Councillors.
Cllr Walsh was speaking at the monthly meeting of the County Council this week in Council HQ in Portlaoise.
“Currently parts of the Ballyroan area and other areas within the Portlaoise Municipal District are experiencing intermittent power outages for short periods,” Cllr Walsh said.
“These outages can have a negative impact on people working from home and plant and equipment commercially and domestically.
“A number of businesses in the area have contacted me about these power outages, which are playing havoc on settings on expensive machinery and stuff like that.
“The power could only be gone for 30 seconds, but it creates havoc.”
The motion was supported by fellow Fine Gael Cllrs, Willie Aird and PJ Kelly.
“I raised this issue before in the Killenard area a couple of times now, and the same problem exists there – frequent drop-out of power,” Cllr Kelly said.
Cllr Walsh also urged Laois County Council to consider using an alert app, such as Map Alerter, to communicate with local residents about service disruptions, public safety messages and important updates.
Despite support from fellow Fine Gael Cllr, Conor Bergin, as well as Independent Cllr, James Kelly, there seemed to be little interest in the proposal.
Donal Brennan, Director of Services said: “The Council at the moment uses a range of social media and its own website to publish public messages relating to the work of the Council.
“Next year, the Council intends to launch the re-design of its website, which would further improve communications with the public.
“We are aware of some companies who claim to offer additional geographic targeting, however, these priority systems typically demand people subscribe to their service and are not available to non-subscribers.”
SEE ALSO – ‘He was an honest, genuine man’ – Laois County Council honours the late John Moran
