Council to use €1.2m of its reserves to fix potholes
Mayor of County Cork, Cllr Noel O’Connor (FG), said yesterday that he had written a letter a fortnight ago to Environment Minister Phil Hogan, pleading for the reimbursement, but had not yet received a reply.
Tom Stritch, the council’s director or roads, said that officials had now approved bringing in private contractors to help tar the roads as they were so denuded of road staff.
Due to a government-directed recruitment embargo, they were simply unable to cope on their own, he said.
Mr Stritch also revealed that the council was in talks with Siptu to bring in private contractors to work on road drainage projects.
Water-logging on roads has caused significant damage and the only way to prevent further deterioration is to ensure drains are dug to take the water away from them.
Mr Stritch said it is hoped to start these drainage projects shortly with a pilot 20km project in the Mallow area, where nearly €400,000 of damage was caused to roads last month.
The council recently lifted an embargo on overtime for its roads maintenance staff, but Mr Stritch reported that the take-up for this was not what had been expected.
The senior official said that €400,000 had been set aside from the cash-strapped council’s own reserves for “emergency pothole repairs” and a further €700,000 was to be used to buy three more velocity patching machines, which fill in potholes faster and more efficiently than conventional methods.
Several councillors, including Michael Hegarty (FG), Frank O’Flynn (FF) and John Paul O’Shea (Ind), said more needed to be done and that motorists were damaging their vehicles on a daily basis because of the state of the roads.
Cllr Donal O’Rourke (FF) said he burst a tyre on a pothole a few days ago and it cost him €150.
He said there was a legal requirement on all motorists to ensure their tyre thread depths were adequate, but felt it ironic there was no legal requirements on local authorities to ensure that their roads were fit for purpose.
“This is a health and safety issue,” he said.
Cllr Kevin Murphy (FG) suggested that if the council could not handle all the repairs, it should deliver tarmac to rural areas and allow people to fill in the potholes themselves.
However, officials said there would be insurance implications in doing this.
Cllr John O’Sullivan (FG) said landowners would help the council with road drainage issues if they were spoken to.
“They will do the needful, but we have to clarify liabilities because there is fear out there,” he added.
Cllr Alan Coleman (FF) said the council was having to shore up problems by dipping into its meagre reserves when the reality was the Government had cut its roads maintenance grants by €8.6m this year.
Mr Stritch admitted that in the long term, structural damage will continue to occur to the county’s roads because of these cutbacks.
-Records were broken during the last three months when 216% more rainfall than average fell at a monitoring station in Millstreet, Co Cork.
-A total of 998.4 mm fell (3ft 3.31) during December, January and February.
-The monitoring station has been in operation there since 1986.
-Cork County Council officials said the deluge has severely impacted on the state of its 12,000km of roads.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
