Fears that roads may have to close

December 2001

Some country roads may have to be closed because of a lack of maintenance and money to fund their repair.

‘Unless something happens and happens quickly, they will have to be closed altogether,’ former county council chairman Leo Carthy told fellow councillors at a budget meeting last Monday.

‘I don’t think they’ve ever been worse. The climate and the weather have ravaged our roads,’ said Deputy Brendan Howlin in agreement.

He said the internal allocation of funds for road repairs within the county was a difficult issue and a breakdown was needed of the spending and numbers of road workers in each electoral district.

‘We need to know the mechanism on which the whole programme is divided. Is it on a kilometre basis, or by population?’ he asked.

Cllr Pat Codd submitted that the Wexford District should get more funding than any other district, because it has almost 40% of the population. ‘That has to be factored in,’ he said.

Senior Roads Engineer Robert Kelly said the pile of complaints about roads in the Wexford district is 12 inches high, with the Enniscorthy district being a close second.

Admitting there was a major problem across the county, he said he would try his best to allocate resources appropriately, but the county was facing a very difficult situation.

However, he did not think that any roads were imminent danger of closure.

‘I don’t think we’re facing a situation of road closures, but we are still in a bad situation. We are continually and effectively in real terms losing our income resource and the condition of the county roads is deteriorating every year,’ he said.

Mr Kelly added that bringing county roads up to an adequate standard was a national issue and the government would have to go in the future to look at a regional and county roads programme.

‘We are a long way behind our European counterparts,’ he said.

He added that the council always does it utmost to keep roads safe, and urged motorists to drive in relation to the conditions.

‘Just because the speed limit is 60mph for country roads doesn’t mean you have to drive at 60mph,’ he said.