Ms Joan Martin:

Project Ireland 2040 is doing the exact opposite. It is all about intensifying development within the existing urban footprint and the councils will be obliged to build more and more within the existing footprint of towns. As far as I know, none of the greenways in rural areas will be lit. There are a number of issues to do with that. One is that if someone is driving on a road, the issue of moving from lit areas to dark areas is difficult for drivers. When drivers get to the edge of a town it is better for them to go back into darkness and not to have odd lights here and there because it disturbs their night vision and there are road safety issues around that. There is also the issue of the cost of public lighting because it is one of the big bill items for local authorities. We are trying to reduce the amount of public lighting in order to help Ireland reach its energy efficiency targets. Therefore, the more public lighting there is, the more energy that is being used all of the time. I refer to the greenway I mentioned earlier on Carlingford Lough and we would certainly not want to see that lit because there would be light pollution.