'Dungarvan in Darkness' Is the term that has been heard around the West Waterford town according to a local councillor.
Sinn Féins Conor McGuinness alongside several local representatives raised the issue of public lighting, with multiple lighting outages across the town.
Other local representatives say the contractor, Killaree Lighting Services, has fallen behind when it comes to repairing public lights across Waterford in recent months.
Speaking at the most recent Dungarvan/Lismore district meeting of Waterford City and County Council, the local representative says the issue needs to be addressed now.
"A big chunk of the town centre is not lit from 6 p.m. I am asking if we could have that conversation and what resources we need to fix the problem. Is the contractor equipped to deal with the outages?
"I think we as councillors think that the response times aren't great, even for routine maintenance, I don't think the response times are adequate."
This is not just a Dungarvan issue McGuinness continued, "It's all across West Waterford. We have Homeowners paying Property Tax and business owners paying rates.
"We have people paying for parking in the town, and the least they can expect is when they finish work and go up to the car park in the evening, that they can feel safe walking through it."
Waterford City and County Council's public lighting contractor, Killaree Lighting Services, has failed to meet required SLA agreements according to local representatives leading to a long list of outages.
Councillor Conor McGuinness says serious conversations need to be had about the issue.
"I think our town is becoming Dungarvan in darkness, a phrase I have heard being thrown around. I think we need to have a serious conversation regarding the contractor being able to handle the workload
We need to look at addressing the cabling and infrastructure that are causing the issues, that have left many parts of Dungarvan in darkness."
Gabriel Hynes, Senior Engineer with Waterford City and County Council responded to councillors, saying all efforts are being made to address the issue, and admitted that the infrastructure in place at the moment is inadequate.
For the latest Waterford News and Sport, tune into WLR News on the hour and download the WLR App for news on demand.
