‘Specific funding’ needed to tackle footpaths – O’Reilly

The bone of contention that is the maintenance and upkeep of the county’s footpaths was raised once again during the recent meeting of Cavan County Council.

The discussion followed a notice of motion on the matter by Fianna Fáil’s Cllr Philip Brady when he called on the local authority to “apply to government departments for more money” for the county’s footpaths that are in “desperate need of repair”.

“There are people parking on the footpaths year in and year out,” fumed Cllr Brady before adding that along the short walk from Insomnia to the Farnham Arms Hotel in Cavan Town “there is always water flowing”.

“Our footpaths are sinking and they are not being fixed. Parts of the footpath are missing and there are leaves and water on them. People in wheelchairs can’t use them. There is a restaurant in Gowna where the water collects on the footpath right out in front of it and people actually can’t get in.”

Cllr Winston Bennett (FG) threw his full weight behind the motion. He said there were people “falling and tripping” because footpaths were so badly in need of repair.

“Great work was carried out on footpaths by Cavan County Council during the COVID-19 pandemic but more needs to be done and more money is needed to carry out the work,” he contended.

Cllr Patricia Wlash (FF) told those gathered that she had been inundated with complaints in recent times about the “footpaths in Cavan Town”.

“There are loose stones on them so, yes, something needs to be done,” she said before Cathaoirleach, Cllr TP O’Reilly (FG) added: “We need specific funding for footpaths; we seem to be going to Active Travel for funding to get works done when really we need specific funding. In some towns, footpaths have deteriorated at an alarming rate.”

Payouts for trips and falls

Cllr Shane P O’Reilly (II) then asked the council executive how much it had paid out in claims connected to injuries on footpaths over the last 12 months.

“We had a situation in my area when a cycling club took this council to court for hundreds of thousands of euros over a fall and, if you ask me, what we need to do is start adopting the attitudes of people in other EU cities where, if you fall on footpaths, it’s your own problem and not that of the local authority,” he said. “We are allowing people not to be responsible for their own actions.”

The meeting then heard that €14,000 had been paid out for slips and falls on the county’s footpaths by Cavan County Council in the second quarter of 2024 - the latest figures available at the time of last Monday’s gathering.

“Well if you take that as an average, that’s €60,000 per year or €300,000 over five years and that would certainly do a lot of work on footpaths,” remarked Cllr O’Reilly before the discussion was brought to a conclusion.