Almost €250,000 has been spent by three Dublin local authorities to replace thousands of faulty street lights after they turned blue, a fault described by council officials as a “catastrophic failure”.
Fingal County Council, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and South Dublin County Council have had to replace more than 5,000 public street lights since a manufacturing defect, causing them to turn blue, was discovered.
A total of 2,001 lights have been replaced since being installed throughout the Fingal County Council area in 2018 and 2019.
Briefing notes prepared for councillors ahead of a meeting last March, released under Freedom of Information legislation, show the issue described by council officials as a “catastrophic failure”.
Residents contacted the council to complain about “blinding blue” lights “making sleep difficult”. Others described the lights as “ugly” while some believed they were installed for environmental reasons.
“I don’t want to hear some ridiculous argument about eco-friendly energy as it is possible to acquire eco-friendly bulbs in warm white colouring,” one resident wrote.
Some 1,500 affected lights are yet to be replaced by the council, with internal correspondence in October showing between 50 and 100 were being changed weekly.
Despite requests from councillors, officials could not provide a timeline of when all blue lights would be replaced. They noted “severe delays” in receiving replacements from the supplier until the middle of last year, which meant lights could not be replaced “in any ongoing or meaningful way”.
In a statement, Fingal County Council said a “manufacturing defect” that led a phosphor coating to fail has caused the light to turn blue.
While all affected lights are still under warranty, the labour costs to replace them, which are not covered under the warranty, came to €193,160 last year, a spokesman said.
This figure does not include labour costs for previous years, with the council saying they were “not tracked” until last year as they were previously included in its overall maintenance costs.
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown’s County Council, meanwhile, did not provide the costs associated with replacing 2,889 of the 3,060 potentially affected lights since it became aware of the issue in 2021.
“We are still in the process of establishing the full extent of the costs,” a spokeswoman said, adding that monitoring and repair works would continue until this issue has been fully resolved.
Separately, South Dublin County Council has spent €45,500 replacing 264 affected lights since the defect was noted in 2021, and has identified a further 123 potentially affected lights.
Dublin City Council said it was not affected by the defect.
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