Dempsey: No pot of gold for road repair

TRANSPORT Minister Noel Dempsey last night insisted no extra money would be given to repair roads wrecked by the Arctic weather snap – despite estimates the damage could run into hundreds of millions of euro.

Mr Dempsey faced down pleas for emergency aid as he came under heavy fire from opposition TDs who accused him and other ministers of “going AWOL” during the weather crisis.

Appearing before the Oireachtas Transport Committee Mr Dempsey rejected demands for emergency financing of roads left badly damaged by the thaw, insisting he “did not have a pot of gold”.

However, the committee heard that the cost of sorting out the severe weather damage caused in County Galway alone could come to €30m, meaning the national emergency total is likely to top the entire €411m budget allocated for all surface repairs in 2010.

Mr Dempsey also signalled that people will be legally obliged to clear the pathways outside their homes and businesses of snow and ice in future bad weather conditions.

The minister, who was on a family holiday to Malta during the worst days of the crisis, insisted everything that could have been done in the emergency had been, but Labour’s transport spokesperson Tommy Broughan accused him of a “deplorable” lack of action which had left the public “incandescent with rage”.

Mr Broughan said failure to grit footpaths had resulted in what he called “10,000 Dempsey fractures” as people broke arms and legs and that the minister’s behaviour would have resulted in resignation in other countries. Mr Dempsey dismissed the comments as “nonsense”, insisting that the Government’s emergency plan had worked well.

He stressed that resources were only available to grit 14,000km of the nation’s 96,000km road network and that would not change in a similar future emergency.

Mr Dempsey said primary roads were given priority and said it was worth considering legislation to ensure that people take responsibility for their own footpaths.

The minister said media reports had mislead people that they could be sued if they cleared their pathways and people subsequently slipped on them.

Fine Gael’s Shane McEntee strongly criticised the fact the Government’s Emergency Response Committee did not meet until three weeks into the severe the weather.

FF Deputy Michael Kennedy called for the Government to be “reasonable” and allocate more money to deal with road repairs.

Mr Broughan accused the minister of “misleading the committee” by saying weather forecasts had not predicted the heavy snow but he withdrew a remark in which he compared the Government’s response to the severe weather with that of Haiti’s in the aftermath of the earthquake after FF complaints at the comment.