Council overtime ban lifted to allow for road repairs

Cork County Council has temporarily lifted an overtime ban on its road repair crews so they can try and tackle the pothole crisis on many of the county’s 12,000kms of roads.

According to the council’s director of services, Tom Stritch, management have also held successful talks with unions which will pave the way for them to bring in private contractors to help with the repairs.

Acting county manager Declan Daly has lifted the overtime embargo for three weeks which, allied to the improvement in the weather, should allow them to carry out more repairs than normal.

However, the council desperately needs money to pay for these repairs. An estimated €2.2m of damage was done to the county’s roads last month, especially during Storm Darwin on February 12.

Mr Stritch said the council had requested this money from the Department of the Environment and if it wasn’t forthcoming, or they only received a percentage of it, management may have to re-look at their planned roads maintenance programme for the remainder of the year.

The council has seen its road maintenance grant from the department cut in half from the €88m it got in 2008, and it cannot dip into its own pocket for the recent storm damage and foot the bill for other road maintenance projects too.

Cllr Frank O’Flynn (FF), chairman of Cork County Council’s northern division, said he wanted a management plan set out which would detail exactly what repairs would be undertaken and when they would be finished.

Speaking at yesterday’s meeting in Mallow he said he’d “never seen so many communities frustrated by the poor state of their roads”.

“There are still roads closed off around the villages of Killavullen and Shanballymore (from last month’s storms). A road in Castletownroche which was closed on February 2 was only repaired last week,” he said.

Cllr O’Flynn also pointed out that due to an embargo on recruitment, the council didn’t have enough staff working on road repairs.

Cllr John Paul O’Shea (Ind) welcomed the lifting of the overtime embargo and the better weather.

“You can’t fill potholes in the rain. There’s no point.” But he expressed concern that if the Department of the Environment did not finance the repairs, the council would spend its “annual budget [on road repairs] within the next couple of weeks”.

Cllr Noel McCarthy (Lab) said councillors were inundated daily with calls from motorists who were furious about the state of the roads and Cllr Dan Joe Fitzgerald (FF) said a lot of damage was being done to cars.

Mr Stritch said he would provide a full countywide report on the repairs programme at next Monday’s meeting in County Hall.

He said he was hopeful the council would get the money it needed from the Department of Environment and he expected a decision on the council’s request for assistance to be made by the Cabinet in the next couple of weeks.

“We will prioritise road repairs and roads with the most traffic on them will get the most priority,” Mr Stritch said.