Pensioner a prisoner in his own home

WHY are people like me, a pensioner who has had both hips replaced in the past two years, prisoners in our own homes?

I have worked all my life and paid my taxes, yet the a few inches of snow that fell a week before Christmas remained untreated.

Forty years ago, with a lot less equipment and money, the local council was able to grit the paths and we were able to get about with relative ease.

Last week RTÉ’s Liveline was contacted by no fewer than 11 business people prepared to supply grit for as little as €10 a ton and one was even prepared to supply it free. While it may not contain salt, some grit on the paths in housing estates and side roads would be better than nothing at all.

I have heard engineers expressing their objections to this particular grit. I am not a specialist but I have never fallen on a path or road that had been gritted with sand or gravel.

Because the path was not gritted I am nursing a very painful arm due to a fall the other day – a fall that would not have occurred had my local council gritted around my estate.

I suppose I should be counting myself lucky when I read about the hundreds of people turning up at A&Es all over the country with broken limbs.

Like the grey voters’ march to the Dáil more than a year ago, I think it is time we braved the (gritted} roads around the Dáil once again.

I am fed up being a prisoner.

Leo Armstrong

Anne Street

Prosperous

Naas

Co Kildare