“GO fill the potholes in the county, they are a shame and a bloody disgrace.”
That was Fine Gael councillor Stephen Keary’s strong demand of Limerick City and County Council (LCCC) at the local authority’s monthly meeting last week.
“The roads before were quite adequate in the rural areas. The regional and local roads were reasonable but now they are gone beyond repair and something has got to be done to get them back on track,” Cllr Keary insisted.
Cllr Liam Galvin (FG) asked the council executive if it was possible to make an emergency application for funding from the Minister for Transport. He pointed out that LCCC had successfully done this previously in 2009.
“The roads are falling asunder from the water,” he claimed.
Director of the Transportation and Mobility Directorate, Brian Kennedy, reassured him that this is something the council would do immediately.
“We have certainly been raising it with the Department and we can make a formal application from this meeting,” he said.
Fianna Fáil councillor Michael Collins also supported the call and spoke of “unprecedented rainfall”.
“We’re getting it left, right, and centre from the constituents and now we are facing a local election and the roads are in an appalling state. It’s not the fault of anybody in here, or indeed our road staff, the weather has caused this. I support Cllr Galvin in his call to apply for emergency funding to try and come to grips with this,” Cllr Collins commented.
Labour Party councillor Conor Sheehan also wholeheartedly endorsed the call for extra funding.
“We’ve had biblical amounts of rainfall since early July last year and it’s the same in the Metropolitan area,” Cllr Sheehan said.
“Some of the potholes, and I know people laugh with disparaging comments about councillors talking about potholes, but some of them are so bad that they could genuinely cause a serious accident.
“There’s one on the Park Road, near the depot, so big that people are swerving onto the opposite side of the road into the path of oncoming traffic to actually avoid it. There is going to be a crash there.
“Roads are literally collapsing at the moment,” the Labour councillor said.
