'All the staff in the world won’t fix Cork's roads,' council told

Senior county council officials say inadequate government funding and climate change

The worst areas for potholes in Co. Cork were said to be on rural roads around Kildorrery, Shanballymore, and Doneraile. File picture: Denis Minihane

No amount of extra road workers will fix a major proliferation of potholes in Co. Cork because inadequate government funding and climate change are causing the problem.

That’s according to two senior county council officials who have said rainfall in the last three months in the county is 60% of the overall yearly total and this has had a major impact on the state of roads, especially in recent weeks.

Padraig Barrett, the council’s director of roads, said he had been monitoring rainfall patterns in the county for the last 30 years and they are changing, bringing more heavy downpours.

Mr Barrett said in the first half of this month there had been 100mm of rain recorded in the county, about one-tenth of the expected annual total.

He was responding to calls from councillors in the North Cork region who said many roads in their area had been severely impacted, resulting in damage to cars and lorries as well as leading to accidents. Mr Barrett was given a lengthy list of different roads where there are issues, even on main roads.

The worst areas were said to be on rural roads around Kildorrery, Shanballymore, and Doneraile. Parts of the Kanturk area were also mentioned. One motorist recently posted a picture of a seven-inch-deep hole that had damaged his car.

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Lorries are said to be swerving off the very poor road surface on the N73 Mitchelstown to Mallow road on the eastern approach to Kildorrery village. Large potholes are appearing on the same road further west, between the former Duhallow Lodge Hotel and the Kerry county bounds.

Fianna Fáil councillor, Deirdre O’Brien, told Mr Barrett she had serious concerns about the increasing amount of water flowing off private land onto roads, thus undermining them. 

“We need to establish where the water is coming from in these cases and deal with it. Oh my God, there are potholes over the place,” she said.

Independent councillor, Frank Roche, described many roads in the area as being in “Third World” condition. Mr Barrett said the council is working closely with the Department of Transport on climate adaptation measures to protect its roads.

He said:

There’s a climate crisis. Our drainage systems are under pressure. 

"We’ll have to work with landowners to solve the issue. It’s fair to say there are a number of potholes on our roads at the moment,” he said.

Mr Barrett said the county’s roads have suffered for years from a lack of funding from central Government. The county has the longest length of roads in the country, at around 12,000kms. He said to have any chance of maintaining these roads at least 5% of them need to be upgraded every year.

However, with the rate of government funding the council can only manage 2.1% - 2.3% annually. Fianna Fáil councillor, Gearoid Murphy, said roadworker numbers had fallen 33% in recent years.

“There are terrible potholes all over the county. It’s clear we don’t have the same manpower we used to have,” he said. Mr Murphy maintained temporary workers should be hired to help address the situation.

Mr Barrett said the problem is "funding, not staffing." Assistant county chief executive James Fogarty agreed with him. “All the staff in the world won’t help it,” he added.