Council chief is ‘blue in the face’ asking for funding for our roads

THE chief executive of Cork County Council said she is ‘blue in the face’ asking Government ministers to increase vital funding for the road network in the county, which receives the third lowest in the country.

Valerie O’Sullivan was speaking at a meeting of the local authority following a motion from the West Cork Municipal District calling for increased funding to come from central Government for road resurfacing and maintenance.

The chief executive queried why is 1km of road in Limerick costed differently to 1km of road in Cork.

She said their ‘level of frustration’ is probably higher than that of councillors.

‘Our business cases and advocacy for a higher rate of allocation falls on deaf ears. We are scratching our heads here and it beggars belief. Is logic prevailing at all? We don’t know how the money is allocated and it seems to be random,’ she said.

‘We have 76% more local roads than Galway, but we still do worse in terms of funding. Some things are indefensible. It makes absolutely no sense and it indicates a complete lack of lateral thinking and joined-up thinking and lack of understanding of Cork’s role into the future.’

Ms O’Sullivan said her advice to councillors was that they won’t make any headway meeting ministers unless the motion takes in funding for the entire county. She also queried why is 1km of road in Limerick costed differently to 1km of road in Cork.

‘If they were costed the same, we would get €50m more in 2024. We would go from €70m to almost €120m. Where is the equitable parity of this?

‘I meet many ministers in the course of many meetings and I’m blue in the face making this point but I’m told it’s to do with Minister Eamon Ryan. We’re the biggest county with the third lowest allocation and 2% of our road network is improved annually, instead of the minimum acceptable target of 5%, through no fault of our own.’

Independent Cllr Karen Coakley who had raised the motion initially at the West Cork Municipal District, said the streets of Skibbereen are in an ‘absolute shocking state’ and highlighted Skibbereen’s Marsh Road, where the NCT centre is based.

‘I’m going to the NCT this week and God knows how I will get on with the shocks driving up there,’ said Cllr Coakley.

Cllr Paul Hayes (Ind) said his own car failed its NCT recently in Skibbereen due to shocks, and said driving instructors were even bringing the state of the roads in Skibbereen to his attention.

‘I’ve done two terms in the Council and some of the issues we are talking about were on the agenda then, like the accident blackspot at Owenahincha Cross which, 10 years on, hasn’t been rectified,’ said Cllr Hayes.

Cllr Joe Carroll (FF) said West Cork is being badly left behind. ‘Cork County Council has more than double the population of 21 other local authorities in the country. It’s been made very clear by our engineers here that the amount of money they receive for road maintenance is only good enough for 2% of the roads in West Cork,’ he said.

Cllr Michael Hegarty (FG) noted that Kildare tops the list getting €11,000 per km, while Cork is the third lowest getting just €6,000 per km of road. He said the All-Island Research Observatory (Airo) report, which highlighted the lack of funding, has to be looked at.

Cllr Declan Hurley (Ind) said the Airo report proved what they were arguing for years but the fact that they are back discussing it proves they are being paid ‘lip service’ from the Cork government ministers.

‘The Minister for Transport has failed us, ignoring numerous requests to meet us and insulted us more with the allocation for funding for 2024. The fresh water pearl mussel down in Dunmanway is stopping roads from being developed.’

Cllr Danny Collins (Ind) said the government TDs aren’t listening to them and it’s councillors that get abuse from the public. ‘It’s very frustrating and has been going on far too long,’ said Cllr Collins.

Cllr Patrick Gerard Murphy (FF) said the Airo report was a valuable document, but little has changed since its publication.

Cllr John O’Sullivan (FG) said if the county wants to attract foreign investment, then the road infrastructure will be critical for connectivity.

‘If the roads are not up to scratch, we haven’t a hope in hell,’ said Cllr O’Sullivan.

His colleague, Cllr Kevin Murphy called on councillors to protest at the Minister’s office to get the funding over the line.