‘Dangerous’ phone boxes on Swords Main Street should be removed, say cllrs

Fingal councillors are demanding that telecommunications company Eir remove the “dangerous” phone boxes from Main Street in Swords.

At a local area meeting in October, Independent councillor Joe Newman tabled a motion which called on the company to remove the phone boxes because “they serve no useful purpose and are not used according to the planning permission granted.”

Newman says that the boxes have not been used “for the purpose they were designed for in years” and are “filthy, a danger to public health, and are being used as street toilets.”

There are currently three phone boxes on Main Street which were originally placed there by Eircom.

Newman says he has asked a “number of times over the past few years” to have the boxes removed but “nothing has been done about it.

“I have been contacted by local people concerned about the state of the boxes,” he says.

“They are currently being used as public toilets.”

The local authority says that it will send a letter to Eir asking that the boxes be removed.

However, Newman and other councillors say that is not enough and more pressure needs to be put on the company to take action.

Labour councillor James Humphreys says a letter “gets sent off nearly every year but nothing happens,” he says.

“We’ve got to the stage where we need stronger powers to hand out fines if they are not removed.”

Fianna Fail councillor Brigid Manton says that in the three years that she has been on the council, the issue has been raised at least three times.

“I support councillor Newman and this motion,” she says.

“Small children can walk down the street with their parents and open the door and wander in to one of these,” she says.

“It has become a health and safety issue as well as an environmental issue.”

Councillor Newman says the chief executive of the council should “take the initiative and have the boxes removed.

“This has been going on for years,” he says.

“I know a letter will now be sent to Eir, but we need stronger wording.

“This is a serious issue and Eir need to take action.”

In 2020, Eir removed 90 percent of the countries public phone boxes with over 400 being decommissioned that year.

ComReg, the communications regulator, said that an analysis of calls from public payphones over the past several years showed their usage had declined considerably and below the threshold that was required for Eir to maintain them.

In a statement, Eir says that it is “always looking at ways in which our infrastructure can better serve the community.

“In Fingal we have installed 5 digital kiosks, these are designed to play a role that is more suitable to urban life today, not only as a point of connectivity, but as an information system for the local authorities services including mapping systems for visitors and residents.

“The kiosk locations in Swords have potential for replacement with EV charging units as there are parking bays in proximity and these would be useful for Swords village and Fingal residents as increasingly people make the move to electric vehicles.

“Across the country the implementation of 75 EV chargers have been agreed with 8 county councils to date, some of those EV chargers have already been installed and many more are planned in the new year.”