Fg outvoted on private lane scheme

The Fine Gael party locally received a significant knock-back this week, when they were defeated, not once but twice on motions pertaining to their much-vaunted and somewhat controversial Local Improvement Scheme (LIS) for private laneways in the county.

The altogether less dramatic but still tetchy Road Budget meeting on Monday of this week mirrored last year’s, when the matter regarding LIS prompted a mass walk-out by Fianna Fail members.

By majority, on that occasion, Fine Gael successfully forced through the scheme to divert up to €260,000 from the general road maintenance budget to instead repair a handful of private laneways around the county.

This time, with three attending members of the Sinn Féin party not abstaining, Fine Gael were out-voted on plans to have the LIS included in the 2015 Road Budget and again thereafter, when party whip Paddy O’Reilly sought to have a letter explaining the decision sent to the 100 or so people on the scheme’s waiting list.

The seven Fine Gael councillors had voted in favour of taking €180,000 from the Community Involvement Scheme for public roads in this year’s budget, with a further €40,000 from each of the three Municipal Districts to renew the scheme.

It was not just the opposition parties in the chamber who were opposed to the proposal, however, with Director of Services for Roads Joe McLoughlin also expressing his concerns.

The total amount of funding for the maintenance and improvement of national, regional and local roads in the county for 2015 will be in the region of almost €14m.

Almost a quarter of that will be spent on a series of ongoing improvements, including finishing the N3 Butlersbridge-Belturbet and N55 Dundavan-Mullahoran schemes, fund design to the CPO stage of the N55 Corduff to South Killydoon realignment, and long-awaited work on Bailieborough junction on the N3 at Virginia.

The figure for regional and local roads though saw a six per-cent reduction from the 2014 allocation, as the figures combined see the roads budget total return to 2001 funding levels.

With this level of funding, the efforts of the local authority will be firmly concentrated on trying to keep as much of the existing road network intact as possible, said Mr McLoughlin.

 

Council accused of turning its back

Several FG party members had suggested that not to include an LIS scheme would amount to the council turning its back on the backbone of the local economy, local agricultural workers who they said feed into several of the region’s largest employers. They, like others, also stated that to be given a briefing on the Roads Budget for the year prior to the monthly meeting in which it was to be adopted was “not ideal”.

While Mr McLoughlin conceded on the point of the time-frame in which the budget details were delivered but said the authority had “no obligation” to deliver an LIS and, prior to this, had acted as an agent of the Department of Transport.

“Our responsibility is to the upkeep and management of the 3,000 kilometres of roads in this county”, he said, adding that it would be irresponsible “in the current climate to be seen to divert money from public to private roads. We have no axe to grind with people living on private lanes”.

He suggested, given the case put by local Fine Gael members, that the Department for Agriculture, co-operatives and farm representative organisations should be lobbied to attain funds for such schemes.

With the two FG motions, both proposed by Cllr O’Reilly, defeated, the 2015 Road Budget was adopted - proposed by FF’s John Paul Feeley and seconded by party colleague Sean Smith - with further motions passed that the Council would lobby the Department for more funds.

A motion by Fianna Fáil’s Clifford Kelly that a deputation meet with the Minister for Transport Paschal Donohoe was also passed.

See next week’s Anglo-Celt for full report on Cavan County Council’s Road Budget 2015, members’ comments, and where money is to be spent on the county’s road network this year.