€11,000 for four rainbow crossings in Limerick

FOUR RAINBOW crossings in Limerick city cost almost €11,000, it has emerged.

The crossings, painted in the coloured stripes of the Pride flag have been rolled out in the city centre over the last 18 months.

Two of the crossings have been installed at Bridge Street, beside the council's city headquarters, and at Dooradoyle Road near Crescent Shopping Centre.

Two more crossings were put in place earlier this summer at the Mary Immaculate College campus in South Circular Road - although these were billed by the company carrying them out as just one job overall. The total invoiced here was €3,837.60.

In a statement upon the unveiling at Bridge Street, council wrote: “The new crossing is designed to proudly express how inclusive Limerick is as a place to live, work and call home”.

The authority added it came as part of wider plans to upgrade and improve Limerick's pedestrian and cycle network.

Documents released to the Limerick Leader under the Freedom of Information Act reveal material for all the crossings and their installation cost a total of €10,737.80.

The crossings at Bridge Street and Dooradoyle Road were funded by the council's Active Travel department, while the crossings within the Mary Immaculate College campus were put in place with money from the college's budget.

The first rainbow crossing, erected in February 2022 in Bridge Street cost a total of €3,398.60.

According to documentation, the vast majority of this sum was spent on 18 metres of a custom-made, colour-coded crossing made out of a special material, at €150 per metre, which was laid down.

The spend on these amounted to €2,700. Money was also spent on lettering.

The council's second crossing, installed in April 2022, cost €3,501.60. Again, the vast majority of this went on the coloured crossing - 22-metres' worth in this case.

At €150 per metre, this amounted to €3,300.00.

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Council disclosed the installation of the crossings saw a four-man crew take approximately five hours for both jobs.

Mary Immaculate College used funding from its Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Interculturalism (EDII) budget for its two rainbow crossings, built on campus.

In total, the cost of installation and materials here came to €3,837.60.

Communication released by the college to the Limerick Leader saw vice-president, administration and finance, Michael Keane write: “You'll need to indicate a case as to why this is a good use of public funds and justification regarding same.”

In response to this, Prof Lorraine McIlrath, the director of EDII who led the project, wrote: “I feel that this would be a visual symbol for staff and students in terms of our support for inclusion regardless of any diversity of identify expression and orientation, given that EDII is such a high priority for the sector and the intersectionality of identity.”

The same road marking company was engaged to carry out all four installations - MacRoads based in Dublin.

The addition of the Pride colours to these road crossings have not seen the entire crossings covered. The traditional black-and-white zebra crossing colours are still in the centre.

In all three cases, multiple strips of Pride colours have been added at each side of the crossing.

The material is custom-made by the company, with six individual colours to reflect the rainbow Pride flag. The product is provided with a one-year warranty.

Limerick City and County Council has been contacted for comment.

An industry source indicated the project could not be completed with ordinary paint as it would not dry in quick enough time.

The thermoplastic material has a product in it which can dry in three or four minutes to allow traffic go back over it.

Ordinary paint would also not enjoy skid-resistance as would this specialised paint. In terms of road regulations, there needs to be a specific skid-resistance level.

It's understood work on the installations at Bridge Street and the Crescent Shopping Centre were completed overnight.