Security hired to protect council staff repairing street lights

The council have been forced to hire private security to “provide protection” to staff carrying out lighting repairs in estates in Jobstown.

Public lighting in Brookview and Rossfield estates in Jobstown have been repeatedly broken by individuals who “want to keep the areas nice and dark and unlit so they can carry out their anti-social behaviour”, according to councillors.

“This is ongoing now for a number of years, contractors have to try and repair the public lighting and each time they go in, they are just broken again,” Cllr Lousie Dunne (SF) told the Tallaght Area Committee on Monday, February 23.

She brought a motion to the ACM calling for An Garda Síochana and the council’s Anti-Social Behaviour Unit to work together to “identify those responsible” for breaking lights in Brookview, adding that she has also since been contacted by residents of the nearby Rossfield estate facing similar issues.

“I know the council have gone in there continuously to repair the lights, I know there has been intimidation and harassment of workers when they go in, it’s absolutely appalling,” Cllr Dunne continued.

In the written reply to her motion, the council said that it has been “agreed that Public Lighting will avail of a security firm already used by Estate Management to provide protection to our maintenance contractor” in the short term while they carry out repairs.

“These may take several days, depending on the nature of the repairs required,” the reply from senior executive engineer Caitriona Lambert read.

“In the longer term, Estate Management will review the overall situation at Brookview with the drugs unit and community police in Tallaght to investigate a holistic approach to designing out anti-social behaviour in the area.”

The reply from Ms Lambert also noted that “unfortunately An Garda Siochána do not have the resources to provide the level of protection required for the duration of these repairs”, which Cllr Dunne said she was “not happy with”.

“I can’t understand how this behaviour is continuously happening,” she said in the council chamber.

Replying to Cllr Dunne’s motion during the meeting, senior engineer Gary Walsh said while council staff were “more than happy” to go in and repair the lights in Brookview for the sake of the residents, “if there’s a will to break these lights they’ll be gone within a week”.

“Just fixing the lights out there isn’t going to solve the issues that are currently being experienced by the community,” he said.

He also stated that while An Garda Síochana “fully support getting these back on”, it would be a “huge resource for the guards” to provide council staff with secuity over the several days required for repairs.

“Previously we used to have the resident’s association go around with our crews if we needed it, but my understanding is up in Brookview now they have effectively been intimidated out of existence”.

Fixing the lights was “a plaster over a bigger wound”, he said, adding that a wider look needed to be taken to get a long-term solution.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme