Joint effort to secure funds for ‘neglected’ roads

A JOINT approach is being made by TDs, on either side of the county bounds, for funding to improve dangerous roads between Kerry and north Cork.

Their concerns are focused on the Killarney- Mitchelstown and Killarney-Fermoy roads which split at Mallow.

Labour’s Sean Sherlock in Cork North East and FG’s Tom Sheahan in Kerry South claimed the road had been neglected and completely under-funded for decades.

They are to make a case for substantial funding to Transport Minister Noel Dempsey and the National Roads Authority (NRA).

The N72 is a major tourist route into the south-west from the Dublin and Waterford areas, they pointed out.

Mr Sherlock, however, said it would fail any international road safety tests, something borne out by the number of accidents on the road, especially between Mallow and Fermoy.

“I’ve lots of letters from the NRA saying it is going to fund improvements, but very little has been done,” he said.

“There has never been a proper overlay of the road and very little in the way of realignment, even though land has been acquired for that purpose.”

The Mallow-based deputy said the issue was above party politics and it was time the NRA “pulled its socks up” as the road had not received its fair share of funding compared with roads in other parts of the country.

Mr Sheahan, meanwhile, claimed the stretch of the N72 from Barraduff to Rathmore was the “worst bit of road” between Kerry and Dublin.

He welcomed plans for improvement works at Barraduff bridge this year.

Meanwhile, north Cork’s planned roads restoration programme for 2010 will have to be suspended to allow any available funds to be re-directed to repairing the damage caused by bad winter weather.

The news was delivered at a meeting of the Northern division of Cork County Council. Divisional manager Tim Lucey confirmed: “The starting point is a suspension of the restoration programme. We will only be allowing roads on that list go ahead this year if we’re satisfied that the most urgent repairs arising out of the bad weather have been completed.”

Co Cork, overall, received an allocation of €42,384,713 for non-national roads for 2010, and €436,314,420 for national roads.