Cork county manager defends emergency plan

CORK county manager Martin Riordan yesterday defended the council’s emergency weather plan following criticism from the public and some of his own councillors.

Mr Riordan said it was impossible to grit all the 12,000 kilometres of roads in the county because there simply wasn’t enough salt to go round.

He said his priority was to make sure the 476kms of national roads in the county were treated and kept open.

The manager said, from December 9, council workers using 10 special trucks had spread about 3,180 tonnes of salt on the primary routes at a cost of €590,000. That’s more than normally required during the whole winter.

He said a limited service had been provided on some non-national roads.

The council is also having to deal with widespread water supply problems due to frozen pipes and reservoirs.

Tankers are in place at a number of locations and a public supply was being maintained at the 21 fire stations throughout the county yesterday, which will be reviewed as necessary.

Several councillors including Barbara Murray, John Gilroy and Michael Hegarty claimed the council’s own emergency telephone service was inadequate. They said they sometimes waited 30 minutes to get a reply.

Cllr Frank O’Flynn said rural areas had been abandoned. “I’ve never saw as many people so angry. We have strong community and farming organisations who could have helped us grit the roads. The health and safety excuse preventing this happening is bureaucracy gone mad. We have to change the rules,” Cllr O’Flynn said.

Cllr Kevin Murphy said other councils had made salt and grit available to such organisations.

“We were caught with our pants down,” Cllr Deirdre Forde added, while Cllr Dan Fleming said the council didn’t have the right machinery to tackle such problems.

Mr Riordan said: “We don’t have a standing army waiting in the wings. I reject claims that the emergency plan didn’t work. If you don’t prioritise then you have chaos.”