Contractors may be used to fix pothole-ridden roads
Cork County Council has responsibility for 12,000km of roads — one eighth of the country’s road network. Many of them are pothole-ridden and according to some councillors a number are currently “impassable”.
Cllr John Paul O’Shea (Ind), said he’d been told last month by council engineers operating in the Mallow electoral area that it could be August before they get around to filling them all in.
Cllr Tim Lombard (FG) said he’d recently taken an engineer out in his car to see how bad the roads had become and “got a blowout on the journey because of a pothole”.
Standing orders were suspended at yesterday’s council meeting in County Hall after Cllr Michael Hegarty (FG) said the county’s road “were now at crisis point”.
“We’re all seeing an alarming escalation of the deterioration. I’ve never seen such anger from the public. At the moment a lot of these damaged roads won’t be attended to for months,” he said.
Cllr Hegarty said a government embargo on recruiting staff had denuded the number of its “outdoor workers”: “We’ll have to subcontract out these works. It’s now a health and safety issue (for motorists).”
That call found backing from his party leader on the council, Cllr Kevin Murphy, who said the condition of roads warranted urgent action.
Cllr O’Shea said the council had only 14 road maintenance staff in the Mallow electoral area which encompasses an area from Banteer to Castletownroche and from Watergrasshill to Doneraile. He said they simply couldn’t keep up with the workload in such a large area.
“It’s no fault of our staff who are doing their best, but they need help,” Cllr Noel McCarthy (Lab) said, while Cllr Barbara Murray maintained that the situation was so bad in East Cork “you couldn’t walk or cycle some of the roads, let alone drive on them”.
“Getting in contractors is one solution, but in the long-term we have to get the embargo lifted on recruiting outdoor staff,” Cllr Dermot Sheehan (FG) said.
A row then broke out when Cllr Alan Coleman (FF) said a lot of the blame lay with the Government for cutting the council’s roads budget by 7% this year, “The only thing that will improve the roads is increased funding,” he said.
FG councillors turned on him saying cuts had been carried out across the board to rectify the financial mess the last government had left the country in.
County engineer David Keane said recent bad weather added to the damage. He said very few permanent fixes were being done to potholes and temporary repairs “were not working.”
Mr Keane said he agreed that lifting the recruitment embargo and employing more road maintenance staff would help the situation and added that he would look at the possibility of employing external contractors in the meantime.
Acting county manager Declan Daly said he would hold discussions on the problem with Tom Stritch, the council’s director of roads, and report back in the next fortnight.
Meanwhile, Cork County Mayor Noel O’Connor (FG) said he would write to Environment Minister Phil Hogan seeking a meeting with him.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
