COUNCILLORS have deemed it “scandalous” that a traffic management survey for Adare has cost the local authority close to €250,000 in consultancy fees.
Cathaoirleach of the Adare Rathkeale Municipal District, Cllr Adam Teskey, took aim at Council management at this Tuesday’s monthly area meeting. The Fine Gael man called on Limerick City and County Council to carry out a cross-record check with regards to works associated with all presentations on the project.
According to Cllr Teskey, councillors received a 20-minute presentation that was given to them at a cost of €245,000.
“I think my colleagues would agree with me that €245,000 on a 20-minute presentation – call it a traffic calming survey, a traffic management survey, or a parking survey – would have been best kept for after the bypass,” he told the Council executive.
“The metrics are going to be wrong and the mile percentage will be wrong at that stage. You are talking about a situation that you have an average 17,000 cars going through it a day, and 28,000 during summer, which is going to fall by the wayside.”
Independent councillor Tommy Hartigan agreed with Cllr Teskey’s comments, considering the cost of the survey “ridiculous”.
“The idea of doing it before the bypass is like buying the curtains before you painted the room to see if they are going to match. It’s a waste of time,” Cllr Hartigan insisted.
Cllr Stephen Keary (FG) hit out that councillors in the area always have the “begging bucket” out for various road projects and maintained that this money could have been put to better use.
“Talk about flagrant waste of money,’ he declared.
“We had a budget adopted in November and looked for an increase of four per cent, and there’s a lot of money there. You need to go back to the collective of directors and thrash out where the monies are going before they are actually wasted. I do believe this is a total waste of a project.”
Fianna Fáil councillor Bridie Collins took the view that €245,000 was a “ludicrous” sum of money for a traffic management plan.
“You used the word ludicrous – this is scandalous,” Cllr Teskey replied.
“The biggest problem here, from my perspective as a councillor, is that a defence has been borne from the directorate and the executive in relation to €245,000 being spent on this plan,” he added.
Director with Responsibility for the Adare Rathkeale Municipal District, Stephane Duclot, said he was not trying to defend it but pointed out that the presentation made to councillors was done in workshops.
