Tags: bad weather, Bernard Allen, budgets, Cork, Ireland, local authorities, Noel Dempsey, politics, road maintenance
THE Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Cork TD Bernard Allen has described the national road maintenance grant allocated to Cork as “derisory” and “totally inadequate” to meet the extreme demands placed on both the county’s local authorities by the recent bad weather.
Cork city and county were granted a combined total of €3,058,300 for national road maintenance in 2010 (€2,609,000 for the county; €1,777,100 for the city) announced this week by Transport Minister Noel Dempsey, compared to a total of €6,198,429 for 2009 (€3,505,429 for the county; €2,693,000 for the city) in 2009.
Deputy Allen said, “These figures are being dressed up by some Fianna Fáil TDs as a good news story. The truth is that this allocation is derisory and totally inadequate to meet the current unprecedented demands being placed on local authorities to maintain a safe and efficient road network.
“Everyone is well aware of the extremely poor condition of many roads following the heavy rain and icy conditions with dangerous potholes evident on the most major routes while some more minor roads have effectively been washed away.
“Minister Dempsey’s reaction to this is to tell local authorities to ‘get on with it’ with maintenance budgets reduced by 50 per cent at the same time that the need for urgent repairs has never been higher.
“This is a disgraceful situation which amounts to the Government effectively washing its hands of a major national problem which will only get worse unless emergency funding is found from somewhere. Minister Dempsey may officially be the Minister for Transport but his performance is more in keeping with the Minister for Going Nowhere,” concluded Deputy Allen.
