Another €3M needed for roads

A total of €3 million in funding is needed to fix Cavan's roads.

This was put to Minister for Transport Jack Chambers during a meeting with Cavan County Council regarding the shortfall of road funding offered to the county by the government.

“I said we needed €3 million,” outlined Cllr Kelly at a recent meeting of the Bailieborough Cootehill Municipal District.

“He was there to listen and said he was making no promises,” the Fianna Fáil councillor relayed back to the meeting of his discussion with his ministerial party colleague.

Outlining the importance of road funding in the district, Cllr Kelly continued “quite a number of roads are potholing”.

He surmised much of the damage on Cavan roads is caused by drainage issues, causing potholes to appear on the road.

Cllr Kelly believes an emergency scheme should be put in place to rectify potholing issues before roads further deteriorate.

When asked how many patching machines were available in the county, Senior Executive Alan Lyons outlined two are permanently based in the county while a further two have been rented in recent months, which has cost the council €130,000 so far.

The meeting heard the patchers are rotated among the three municipal districts with equal time given to each.

Cllr Kelly responded, stating a patcher should be permanently located in each municipal district.

He made reference to the roads in Meath, where he believes the local authority is doing a “wonderful job on drainage on all of their roads”.

“We are very much behind” he says, making reference to the shortfall of funding provided by the government this year.

Agreeing with his colleague, Fianna Fáil's Cllr Aiden Fitzpatrick stated while it’s great the council rented extra patching machines, the money spent could have gone towards purchasing a new machine for the county.

Cllr Fitzpatrick also agreed that drainage was a major problem, and said “People deny global warming is a problem but the rain is coming down heavier than ever and the drains aren’t fit for it.”

Chiming in on Cllr Kelly’s complaints, Aontú's Cllr Sarah O’Reilly said she had noticed “little areas starting” to become problematic on particular roads.

“This will be a bigger job in another couple of months,” she cautioned.

She mentioned mainstreet in Shercock which she believes in particular needs attention.

The meeting heard the road has deteriorated to such a point that the gravel beneath the road's surface is now protruding.

Mr Lyons told the group in order to patch the road, whether the potholing issue is big or small, a stop go system must be put in place to complete the work.

In areas such as Shercock’s Main Street, this can be difficult to put in place.