Cork's roads left in 'appalling state' by utility companies
Cllr O'Brien said that the works 'are nothing short of appalling in places.' She described Uisce Éireann as 'the bane of our lives', while Eir and National Broadband Ireland 'are just absolutely appalling, the mess they're leaving after them'.
The Fermoy councillor said the reinstatement works are often substandard, poorly finished and 'in many cases an outright hazard'.
"Lumps of tar literally thrown around, potholes, dykes pulled out and, in some cases, trees cut into limbs left in drains, which leads to blocking the drains later on.'
She said the work 'compromises the structural integrity of our roads, it accelerates deterioration, it poses risks to our drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, and shows disregard for the public realm that we all share a duty to protect'.
There was widespread agreement among the other councillors present. Cllr Dominic Finn said that if contractors 'can get away with it, they'll chance it and they'll leave some of the reinstatement of the verges and the roads not done'.
Cllr Sheila O'Callaghan said that the main street in Watergrasshill 'had 50 shades of grey from all the different people who had hacked at it and laid different surfaces, which makes it very unsightly'.
In North Cork there are so many roads that had been looked after by our engineers and then wrecked by some other agency that has come in and left them in an appalling state,' said Cllr Kay Dawson.
'In Carrigaline we're waiting over 18 months for Irish Water to come back into an estate to patch up an area they took up' while Cllr Audrey Buckley said she's been waiting over four years for Eir to fix inspection covers on a footpath in Crosshaven that's part of the Safe Routes to School scheme,' Cllr Patrick Donovan added.
Cork County Council Divisional Manager Niall Healy told the meeting that the local authority received over 5,000 applications for road opening licences last year. Uisce Éireann made up over 60 per cent, Eir 17 per cent, National Broadband Ireland 14 per cent and the remainder were ESB Networks and private contractors.
He said that the conditions included within the licence require that the road be reinstated to the standard in which it was before the works were carried out.
'There are two issues that we monitor very closely. One is the timeliness, the other is the quality of the work that's carried out.
'We've had an issue with Uisce Éireann over the last two to three years where temporary reinstatements were being done, but they weren't being followed through with permanent reinstatements. So there was a legacy backlog right across the county in relation to Uisce ireann works,' he continued.
Mr Healy added that the council has had several meetings with the national water utility and the situation has 'improved enormously'.
"You may have seen blitzes by Uisce Eireann across the county where they've moved into particular geographic areas and they've done a lot of permanent reinstatements.'
He concluded that the situation 'should be an improving one' but having the council is conscious that there are issues out there and they are being monitored.
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.
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Irish Independent
17-07-2025
- Irish Independent
Cork's roads left in 'appalling state' by utility companies
At this week's meeting of the council, Cllr Deirdre O'Brien put down a motion calling on the local authority to write to utility providers and service contractors, expressing dissatisfaction with the quality of reinstatement works on the county's roads. Cllr O'Brien said that the works 'are nothing short of appalling in places.' She described Uisce Éireann as 'the bane of our lives', while Eir and National Broadband Ireland 'are just absolutely appalling, the mess they're leaving after them'. The Fermoy councillor said the reinstatement works are often substandard, poorly finished and 'in many cases an outright hazard'. "Lumps of tar literally thrown around, potholes, dykes pulled out and, in some cases, trees cut into limbs left in drains, which leads to blocking the drains later on.' She said the work 'compromises the structural integrity of our roads, it accelerates deterioration, it poses risks to our drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, and shows disregard for the public realm that we all share a duty to protect'. There was widespread agreement among the other councillors present. Cllr Dominic Finn said that if contractors 'can get away with it, they'll chance it and they'll leave some of the reinstatement of the verges and the roads not done'. Cllr Sheila O'Callaghan said that the main street in Watergrasshill 'had 50 shades of grey from all the different people who had hacked at it and laid different surfaces, which makes it very unsightly'. In North Cork there are so many roads that had been looked after by our engineers and then wrecked by some other agency that has come in and left them in an appalling state,' said Cllr Kay Dawson. 'In Carrigaline we're waiting over 18 months for Irish Water to come back into an estate to patch up an area they took up' while Cllr Audrey Buckley said she's been waiting over four years for Eir to fix inspection covers on a footpath in Crosshaven that's part of the Safe Routes to School scheme,' Cllr Patrick Donovan added. Cork County Council Divisional Manager Niall Healy told the meeting that the local authority received over 5,000 applications for road opening licences last year. Uisce Éireann made up over 60 per cent, Eir 17 per cent, National Broadband Ireland 14 per cent and the remainder were ESB Networks and private contractors. He said that the conditions included within the licence require that the road be reinstated to the standard in which it was before the works were carried out. 'There are two issues that we monitor very closely. One is the timeliness, the other is the quality of the work that's carried out. 'We've had an issue with Uisce Éireann over the last two to three years where temporary reinstatements were being done, but they weren't being followed through with permanent reinstatements. So there was a legacy backlog right across the county in relation to Uisce ireann works,' he continued. Mr Healy added that the council has had several meetings with the national water utility and the situation has 'improved enormously'. "You may have seen blitzes by Uisce Eireann across the county where they've moved into particular geographic areas and they've done a lot of permanent reinstatements.' He concluded that the situation 'should be an improving one' but having the council is conscious that there are issues out there and they are being monitored. Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.
Irish Independent
17-07-2025
- Irish Independent
Wexford principal‘s desperate plea for school to be added to safe routes scheme – ‘I can't stand by and look at the potential threats to life'
And while there haven't been any fatalities outside of the school to date, its principal John Ryan lives in constant fear that one day an unwanted local statistic will change. 'There's been multiple deaths within a two-mile radius of the school over the last 10-15 years,' he says. 'The number of deaths speak for themselves, they're not directly related to the school itself but it just shows you the dangers the N30 poses.' Although Clonroche NS has a relativity small number of students (101), there are continual issues in how those children are dropped off and collected outside the school every day. Those children come from 71 different families, and those families, those parents and guardians, have just 19 car parking spaces to inch in and out of every morning and afternoon. And they must do so with HGVs hurtling past them, with heavy traffic and excited children obscuring their views, with all the added stresses of ensuring the safety of both themselves and other motorists. In an effort to alleviate these problems, to make life for everyone at the school safer, Mr Ryan is calling for Clonroche NS to be added to the Safe Routes to School Scheme (SRSS) as a matter of urgency. The Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Scheme is a nationwide programme designed to make it safer for children to walk and cycle to school. It focuses on improving infrastructure like walking paths and cycle lanes, enhancing safety at school entrances, and increasing bike-parking facilities. However, because of its location, Clonroche NS is not ideally suited to the scheme. 'We're very unique in that we're one of the only schools in Ireland on a national road,' said Mr Ryan. 'We are on the list for the safe routes to school, but there's no guarantee as to when it will come. While we would welcome the SRSS team coming here to do what they can, we don't really know and they don't really know what it's going to look like or when it's going to be. "We were told it was going to be soon and it was done on a basis of need, but if you spend ten minutes outside the gate here you'd see it's very needed.' Niamh Murphy is mother of three children who currently attend the school. She is also a member of the parents' association and was involved in a recent survey which underlined just how dangerous it is for those exiting and entering the school on a daily basis. 'The green schools travel officer Lucy Murphy carried out a survey in 2023, it was conducted between the hours of 2-3 p.m.' she said. 'In that time there were 193 vehicles going past the school, and 89 per cent of them were exceeding the speed limit passing the school. 39 per cent of those were travelling over 65 kmh.' ADVERTISEMENT Given the situation, Niamh and the other parents have made a concerted effort to educate their children on road safety, to stress the utmost importance in exiting the school gates in an orderly fashion. But even then there are variables, outside factors which can't be accounted for. 'There's cars in the spaces, cars behind those cars, children getting in and out of cars, onto buses, all beside a national road,' she says. 'As much as you educate your children on road safety you can't account for other road users.' Part of the problem, according to Mr Ryan, is that many of those passing through the village aren't fully aware of the school's location, don't realise there are children nearby until it's too late. 'Coming from the New Ross side, while there are signs warning there's a school ahead, you're past the school before you realise it, because you're going at speed,' he says, 'From the village side you're going a bit slower but even at that there's extreme speeds. There's a huge volume of traffic. We don't have the liberty of putting out the speed cameras but it doesn't take a genius to see how fast they're going. 'Home times are split, but it's still hectic, we have 71 families altogether and 19 car parking spaces. Mayhem is the only way to describe it. We have a duty of care to the children, the parents, and the staff, I can't stand by and look at the potential threats to life, there's no other way of saying it.' The current layout of the school and its surrounds makes walking or cycling to class something which all those associated with the school are reluctant to recommend. 'There's isn't parking available in the village, so there's no alternative for many of those 71 families,' said Niamh. 'I've walked my son to the school and your heart is constantly in your mouth, the speed of the HGVs going past would almost pull you off the path.' A proposed bike shelter for the school was vetoed for the same reason, the board of management agreeing that no child should be encouraged to cycle alongside the N30 at the current time. Norma Doyle was the principal at Clonroche NS prior to Mr Ryan's appointment and she says this is an issue which predates her successor's arrival, an issue which those involved with the school have been raising for over 20 years. 'This has been going on since 2004 when the campaign started,' she says. 'Wexford County Council (WCC) has admitted this is an exceptional situation; I know it's bound by rules and regulations and bye-laws, but our argument is if it's an exceptional situation exceptions should be made.' However, in terms of the Safe Routes to School scheme, WCC must work alongside Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), the state body responsible for our national roads. 'The council's hands are tied to a certain extent,' accepts Mr Ryan, 'but we need to sit down with representatives from WCC and TII to discuss this in greater detail. The safe routes scheme is fantastic, but it might not work perfectly if it's the same plan applied here as a school on a smaller road.' Keen to stress that Clonroche NS has a lot going for it, that its parents responded positively to a recent survey carried out by the board of management, Mr Ryan says the last thing anyone wants is for the school to be characterised by this one issue. 'We have implemented a number of measures to increase safety outside the school including road safety lessons with the RSA, and a stay safe programme. Outside of that we are a member of the Green Schools, Active Schools, and Creative Schools programmes, we have an extensive music curriculum and perform concerts every Christmas, and our students participate in the Rackard League and the mini-sevens every year.' 'In addition, we are a Digital School of Excellence, a STAR School (Supporting Traveller and Roma) and take part in the Living Arts project annually,' Yet the traffic issues remain. Some of the responses to that survey highlight the concerns parents have. 'For the sake of the children and everybody's health, parents collecting their children should turn off their engines while waiting,' one writes. 'The speed of the vehicles coming into Clonroche is terrible, people are pulling out/in taking risks and then being blown off the road by angry drivers. It's just very hectic.' Councillor Bridín Murphy is the chair of the Clonroche NS board of management and she is urging TII to consider the school for the safe routes scheme for 2026. 'The traffic conditions on the N30 outside Clonroche National School are simply not safe. Each morning and afternoon, parents and children face high-speed traffic on a national primary route with inadequate safety infrastructure, and fast-moving HGVs. This stretch of the N30 is under the responsibility of Transport Infrastructure Ireland, and it's clear it must act now. "This stretch of road from Green's corner to Leeches Bend is dangerous. I'm calling on TII to urgently install traffic-calming features. The safety of our young school children must be TII's top priority.'
Irish Independent
11-07-2025
- Irish Independent
Wexford community raise concerns about safe routes to school scheme
Board of management at Kiltealy NS say they want to see an outcome that will prioritise the safety and wellbeing of the pupils Enniscorthy Guardian Today at 04:11 Despite 92 submissions, a petition with over 300 signatures, and a public meeting which led to the unanimous rejection of the scheme, the people of Kiltealy remain fearful that a proposed Safe Routes to School project in their village will go ahead without any further consultation. The scheme, which will see speed ramps constructed in the proximity of the school; pedestrian crossings erected in a number of locations; the removal of the set-down area outside the school with 26 car parking spaces removed; the installation of a two-metre wide footpaths throughout the village; and the reduction of the road width to six metres; is part of a national programme run by the National Transport Authority (NTA). Designed to make it safer for children to walk and cycle to class, Safe Routes to School schemes are carried out in a finite number of Wexford schools on an annual basis. This year, Ballaghkeene NS and Kiltealy NS were two of the schools selected for the programme. Already, a number of community meetings have taken place in Ballaghkeene with residents expressing their reservations about both the scheme and the lack of public consultation prior to its approval. While the Ballaghkeene scheme led to 24 submissions from members of the public, those living in Kiltealy – a village with a population of 466 according to the last census – have gone considerably further. 'The submission phase was completed on July 2 and there were 92 submissions in total,' said Kieron Doyle who has been involved in setting up the meetings in Kiltealy. 'We've had two community meetings and approximately 50 people at each of them, in the second meeting we unanimously agreed that we wanted to reject this programme in full." The plan has the support of both the school board of management and the parish council. Many of the submissions, which will now be considered by WCC, highlight a number of concerns and fears regarding the proposed scheme and how it will impact pedestrians and motorists in Kiltealy. One of those submissions relates to an individual undergoing medical treatment who will be discommoded by the installation of pencil bollards. "Don't get me wrong, safety comes first but how do you expect a dialysis patient to go and be picked up from another location when he has been picked up outside his gate for the last 30 years?' they ask. 'Sometimes he is not in good health after coming back from being on dialysis for four hours or more. He is picked up by a bus which is funded by the HSE and you expect him to go and be collected in another location? He has to have his dialysis and be picked up outside his gate. 'What we want is to go back a little bit with the pencil bollards so they can leave enough space for a vehicle to park, especially if they are planning to put a ramp outside the pier.' With regards to the scheme's overall impact on the village, many of those who have filed official submissions suggested Kiltealy would become less safe if the works go ahead. ADVERTISEMENT 'It is difficult to understand how anyone, conducting a health and safety risk assessment of the proposed changes could conclude that these measures will reduce the risks faced by our children on their way to and from school each day,' one wrote. 'Currently, children are dropped to school outside of the school gates. Going forward if the proposed measures are approved, children will be walking from either the graveyard or hall carpark. "The hall carpark is already limited in capacity at times and will now be expected to handle a significantly higher volume of cars. However, it lacks a circular flow of traffic and only has one entry and exit point which will exacerbate congestion and create a more hazardous environment.' Arguing that the proposed changes will simply move the congestion issues elsewhere, the resident said some aspects of the plan are 'definitely positive' but that, in order to find a workable solution, 'all sections of the community' needed to be involved in the decision-making process. The issue of consultation and ensuring the voices of the public are listened to, was also referenced in another submission. 'It is my understanding that the wider Kiltealy community was not adequately consulted during the early stages of this process,' they wrote. 'As a result, many local residents feel that their views and concerns have not been sufficiently considered, and there is a general lack of agreement with the proposals as they currently stand. 'I respectfully request that further consultation be undertaken with the community to ensure a more inclusive and transparent process. This would also allow for alternative options to be explored which may better reflect the needs and priorities of those directly affected.' A parent of three children under the age of five explained why they felt compelled to 'strongly object' to the proposal. 'Shifting the problem down the road to the community centre carpark where there is a large number of tiny toddlers arriving and leaving the playschool at the same times is not the answer,' they wrote. 'This is also the same carpark for the large playground which attracts a lot of users from near and afar daily and also the carpark for the community gym which is constantly busy and in use. 'As a mother who is currently doing drop off and collections in this small carpark five days a week I can firmly give my opinion that this is in no way an improvement or a solution to the current situation at the primary school. Moving the primary school parents' designated drop off/collection point to the community carpark will create more problems such as a severe shortage of parking spaces and pose a serious risk to the toddlers attending the playschool. 'The prospect of parking by the school with two toddlers multiple times a day causes me great stress and worry. Having to unload a double pram to unload three children to then walk up to the school, then walk back with two of them, is just not feasible every day.' A fellow parent explained that, as someone whose children attend a rural school, it was generally accepted that some pupils would have to be driven to the gates every morning. 'We have no choice but to drive to our rural community school. It is neither convenient nor safe to think I will be able to park the proposed distance from the school and safely walk all four of my children through a busy village. I have two hands and four children. I can not hold hands with all four of them. They are all well-behaved, however, they're young, and all children no matter how well-behaved, can be unpredictable. They do not have the same regard for safety. "I am certainly not against walking. We are a very active family. The walk is not the issue. Not having a set-down area for parents is a safety issue. People in a hurry to work, people with sick children in the car, or very young babies could make mistakes, could drop off as close to the school as possible but this will mean children being set-down at unsafe areas not designated to the task.' However, in support of the changes one resident, who wished to remain anonymous said: "It is evident that some members are opposed to this scheme, despite its obvious benefits. But there is a considerable portion in favour. "Many are unhappy with these signs saying Kiltealy Says No which have mysteriously appeared in the village. It gives the impression that the entire village is against this scheme, which is blatantly not true. "Many Kiltealy people, as laid out in submissions, believe there is a greater good at play here and that some small change and small sacrifice will result in a safer environment for our children. "Many believe this is a sacrifice worth paying." Kiltealy NS's board of management has outlined its reasons for approving the scheme. 'Concerns regarding traffic speed and congestion outside the school, particularly during drop-off and pick-up times, have long been a significant issue for both the school itself and the wider Kiltealy National School community,' read a statement issued by principal of the school, Maeve Duff. "Current and previous boards of management have made repeated representations to the local authority seeking action to address these matters.' Following the launch of the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programme in 2021, Kiltealy NS submitted an application and was subsequently accepted into the programme. In September 2024, the school was notified of its selection for Round 3 of the SRTS Programme. "During the initial stages of engagement, the board of management put forward the school's specific concerns regarding traffic speed and congestion,' continues the statement. 'These concerns were further heightened following a road traffic incident earlier that year involving a staff member who was commuting through the village, to the school, just prior to morning drop-off time. 'As part of the programme, the SRTS team conducted an audit, which included the observation of traffic flow during school drop-off and collection times. In addition, communication with parents was initiated via a letter from the SRTS, providing background information on the programme and a survey link, this letter and survey link was distributed to parents through the school's online communication platform. "Upon the collection and analysis of this data, the SRTS engaged with the local authority, WCC, which was tasked with drafting a preliminary design to address the concerns raised.' According to the board of management it, along with 'various community stakeholders', were afforded the opportunity to review this preliminary design at a dedicated stakeholder early engagement session organised by the SRTS. "This session enabled attendees to raise questions and express concerns regarding the proposed measures,' the board of management states. 'These were acknowledged and considered by the relevant authorities during the meeting.' The plan has also received support from the Parish Council. "Overall, Kiltealy Parish Council supports the proposed Kiltealy Safe Routes to School. After considering the potential impact on access to church properties such as the Church, Parochial House, parish car park, and graveyard, and the likely loss of existing on street car park spaces, we believe the long-term safety and wellbeing benefits for our school children and the wider community outweigh any short-term challenges and change that can likely be managed. The safety of the school children now and into the future is our primary consideration.' Currently awaiting approval from the local council, a vote on whether to go ahead with the scheme will be made at a future district meeting. And for Kieron, the fear is that the situation facing those in Ballaghkeene will be repeated in Kiltealy. 'That's been the case elsewhere,' he said when asked if he expected the scheme to be pushed through without consultation. 'It seems to be the modus operandi if you look at what happened in the Ballagh; acting without people being fully aware of what's going on. It will get done over the summer when no one's looking, and it can't be undone then.' The statement from the board of management said: 'The board of management of Kiltealy National School remains confident that WCC will give due consideration to all submissions received and will develop a final plan that effectively addresses the longstanding issues of traffic speed and congestion outside the school. It is our expectation that the outcome will prioritise the safety and wellbeing of our pupils – a matter which has always been, and will continue to be, our foremost concern,' the statement concludes.
