€1.2m spent on South Tipperary road repairs but government blasted for insufficent funding
€1.2m has been spent on roads in South Tipperary in the last six weeks as a result of the damage caused by the severe weather.
Members of South Tipperary County Council were told that j800,000 was spent on national roads and j400,000 has been spent on non-national roads
Director of Services for Roads, Billy McEvoy, said that the focus for the roads programme in 2010 woul be to maintain the road network they already had.
They would be concentrating on surface dressing in the year ahead. They were not in a position to carry out permanent repairs on non-national roads until there was an improvement in the weather conditions, Mr McEvoy said.
He told the meeting that they would be holding area roads meetings and works would have to be prioritised with members. in each area.
The council director said that broadly speaking the council received the same allocation for the roads as it did in 2009, and 2010 would be about 'holding what we have' and preventing further disintegration,
Cllr. Seamus Healy said the work that was done on the national roads was excellent and was done quickly.The condition of the local roads was terrible and it was short sighted of the Department not to make money available for this work because the work would cost more the longer it was allowed go on.
Cllr. John Fahey said you could go nowhere in South Tipperary now without people complaining of the potholes in the roads.
Cllr. Michael Fitzgerald said Minister Noel Dempsey not only insulted South Tipperary County Council but every local authority in the country when he failed to make emergency funding available to repair the damage done to the road network as a result of the severe weather.
"Appeals for money unfortunately have fallen on deaf ears. The Minster has not taken it seriously," he said.
Cllr. Fitzgerald said there should have been a one-off allocation from the Department to see that the condition of the roads was brought back to what they had been.
As a result of the Minister's decision, the council was left in a 'penny pinching ' position when it came to dealing with the problems with the road network.
"The message going out here today is that there is noting that can be done. All we are doing is filling potholes. We are not going to be able to do the amount of work that is needed to bring back the roads to any decent standard. We are not getting the money to spend," said Cllr. Fitzgerald.
Cllr. Siobhan Ambrose said the main roads were okay but that some non-national roads were as good as impassable.
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Weather for Clonmel
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
Heavy rain
Temperature: 2 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 6 C to 7 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: South west
