Cllrs want roads to schools salted

Councillors in the Cavan-Belturbet Municipal District have asked that roads leading to rural primary and secondary schools be salted at times of heavy overnight frost or snow.

Tabled as a motion by Fianna Fáil's Áine Smith, she suggested that the local authority contact central government looking for “additional funding” to allow them to salt those roads in the interest of safety.

The suggestion was supported by fellow party colleague John Paul Feeley who said that all councillors had tabled similar-type questions in the past.

“It would be great if it could be accommodated,” he told the MD's January monthly meeting, but accepted that few councillors were brave enough to add one road to the salting route only for another to be taken from the list.

Regardless of whether routes are salted or not, Cllr Feeley urged caution among the general public when travelling during inclement weather conditions.

He highlighted how the council had left salt supplies in some areas for local people to treat roads in their own areas.

Fine Gael's Peter McVitty acknowledged that the council are “extremely good at salting roads” compared to some other counties. He queried if the issue with salting more roads was a material problem or a “manpower issue”?

However, he too asked that roads leading to rural schools such as Kildallan be salted.

There was support too from Fine Gael's Madeleine Argue, Fianna Fáil's Patricia Walsh and Independent Brendan Fay who asked who was responsible if a person salted the footpath outside their own home or business.

In respect of that specific query, Director of Service Brendan Jennings highlighted the 'Good Samaritan' law.

Back to salting roads, and Cllr Feeley asked if there was “anything we can do ourselves” as a council.

But Senior Area Engineer Paul Mulligan informed the meeting that the issue was that, if they salted the roads “one day and not the next, you create an expectation”.

In recent weeks, he could attest, that salting crews had worked right around the clock. “And they still have to do their day jobs,” he added.

“We do very well with the resources we have,” said Mr Mulligan, but added it would be “very difficult” to salt all roads to all schools.

“We do everything we can with the resources we have.”