Up to 1,100 public streetlights in Galway City do not comply with modern safety standards – and it’ll take at least €12m to upgrade them.

The bombshell was dropped by Director of Services, Patrick Greene who confirmed five housing estates remained in the dark since Storm Éowyn in January because 100 of their streetlights have unsafe, outdated cabling.

At Monday’s Galway City Council meeting Mr Greene confirmed the local authority had no source of funding to fix the 100 lights – a job that required a complete upgrade of underground cabling and was not just about changing lightbulbs.

The short-term requirement to fix the 100 broken streetlights in estates would cost €1.2m, he said.

They were located at Inchagill Road, at R336 to the rear of UHG in Newcastle, at Beach Court and Seamount in Salthill and Hawthorn Place in Knocknacarra.

But he said an entire network of 1,100 ‘unsafe’ streetlights in Galway needed to be replaced because they have two-core wiring and no earth connection which means they do not comply with modern safety standards.

Mr Greene confirmed that the Council’s insurance company has ruled out covering the costs of replacing the cabling. And he said contractors have refused to fix the 100 streetlights damaged by storm in January, because the infrastructure does not comply with standards.

He said the underground cabling was transferred from the ESB to local authorities in 2009 and it has not been upgraded since newer standards were introduced.

The existing two-core wiring without an earth connection are not covered by insurance because they are deemed riskier and more likely to fail.

“It’s not possible to fix the 100 streetlights without doing the cabling upgrade,” he said.