No money for new lighting
THERE is currently no capital finding available to finance any new public lighting in Sligo.
Acting Director of Services Emer Concannon told Cllr Dara Mulvey that the council is operating under ‘significant financial constraints in relation to the provision and maintenance of public lighting’, and that the public lighting budget in 2020 had a ‘significant cost overrun’.
At present, Ms Concannon said, ‘ the provision of standalone projects involving the construction of new lighting together with associated civil works is currently not envisaged. The maintenance fund available is strictly for, and targeted at, the maintenance of the existing public lighting network’.
Therefore, Ms Concannon concluded, ‘any proposals, even those we would like to consider on health and safety grounds or the grounds of aesthetics, cannot be considered in the short term.’
Cllr Mulvey had submitted a motion seeking an update on whether any funds were available for the Municipal District.
He said he had been contacted by a number of people in relation to lighting, with the increase in the amount of people out walking making issues of dark spots along roads and paths all the more obvious.
He suggested that when the time comes to replace lights in certain areas, they could be replaced with a bulb of a higher wattage to ensure the benefit of the light is fully maximised.
The motion was supported by Cllr Gerard Mullaney, who said every councillor has areas where lights are needed and have been contacted by constituents in regard to them.
Cllr Martin Baker made the point that money could be set aside in next year’s budget to address problems across the county in regard to public lighting, and that consideration should be given to doing so.
Cathaoirleach of the District, Cllr Michael Clarke, questioned whether ‘pressure may come off ’ with public lighting soon, as there is a programme of replacement underway for more environmentally friendly lights to be introduced.
Ms Concannon said that given the emphasis on the climate action programme at central government level, this could well be the case. The retrofitting of public lights in the county has required a significant seven-year loan, Acting Chief Executive Tom Kilfeather said, and that programme will take priority over that period, he concluded.
According to a recently published report by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the EU is the world’s biggest live animal exporter with more than 1.8 billion chickens, pigs, sheep, goats and cattle transported across a border in 2019.
The EU was estimated to be responsible for more than three-quarters of that total.
What will it take to end this unacceptable and unnecessary trade in live animals?
Is it not enough of a sacrifice that these animals give up their lives for us, but that we add insult to injury by forcing them to endure the stress and suffering of long-distance transport?
Just under 200,000 calves were exported from Ireland to Europe in 2019 at just 15 – 21 days old.
They are mostly unwanted male calves from the dairy sector.
Over 400,000 pigs are exported every year, the majority of which go to Northern Ireland for slaughter and processing.
We bring these sentient animals into the world for the sole purpose of killing and eating them.
Do we not have an obligation to give them the best life that we can, given we will take their life at the time of our choosing?
Yet the industry, in its relentless search for new markets and more profit, insists that these condemned animals be subjected to long journeys in crowded transport trucks and, in the case of Ireland, journeys in cargo ships across the Irish Sea and the English Channel.
The industry likes to portray the live export trade as being well-regulated and not causing stress to the animals at all.
One would be forgiven for believing that the cows, the sheep and the pigs were heading off on a luxury cruise ship.
Sadly, no amount of lofty and, frankly, banal statements churned out by industry representatives about the ‘ highest welfare standards in the world’ can disguise the fact that the live export trade is both an abhorrence and unnecessary.
It is time this immoral trade ended.
It has no place in civilised society.
Yours faithfully,