Call to bring in contractors to carry out 150 road improvement schemes in Cork
Area In Further Electoral The Are The Local Highest The Improvement In 73, 150 Number, Scheme Picture List With Schemes On File Macroom Area, The Bantry Are Currently There A Waiting 28
Calls have been made to bring in contractors to carry out some road improvement schemes in Co Cork because the local authority sometimes doesn't have the workforce to undertake them.
A county council meeting heard there were a large number of road improvement projects on the waiting lists in the county under two Government funding streams — Community Involvement Scheme (CIS) and Local Improvement Scheme (LIS).
There are currently 150 schemes on the LIS waiting list. The highest number, 73, are in the Bantry electoral area, with a further 28 in the Macroom area. By contract, there is just one in the Carrigaline Municipal District area.
The estimated cost of these projects is €6.2m.
Meanwhile, there are 81 projects on the waiting list for the CIS with an estimated cost of €5.095m. The biggest number, 20, are located in the Kanturk/Mallow Municipal District area. The Fermoy Municipal District and the Macroom Municipal District have 12 each, followed by the Bandon/Kinsale Municipal District with 11, and there are 10 in the Skibbereen electoral area.
The figures were obtained from council officials by Fine Gael councillor John Paul O'Shea, who said the money allocated from various Government departments should be spent quicker to reduce the backlog.
In a written reply to Mr O'Shea, Padraig Barrett, the council's director of roads, said the costs for projects on the waiting list were preliminary estimates only.
"There are a large number of applications on the waiting list and it may be some years before works are undertaken," he said.
Independent councillor Danny Collins pointed out that having 73 projects on the LIS waiting list in his electoral area of Bantry was not good enough.
“We should push these jobs back onto some private operators if we haven't got the manpower to do them ourselves,” Mr Collins said.
The county council undertook a record 22 projects under the LIS this year to date, with 33 accounting for an outlay of €1.577m. This compared to 20 projects in 2019 and 19 in 2020.
Under the CIS, it completed 26 projects in 2019, 22 in 2020 and 28 so far this year. Over the three years, these projects cost €3.34m.
However, there could be far more done if the council had the manpower and if the criteria for getting into the schemes hadn't been recently changed.
Fianna Fáil councillor Seamus McGrath pointed out the criteria “had become more restrictive".
“The LIS paperwork and criteria are very cumbersome. It needs to be more user-friendly,” Fianna Fáil councillor Frank O'Flynn said.
Fine Gael councillor Anthony Barry agreed with him. “The conditions need to be broadened out, they are problematic,” he said.
Mr McGrath then gained unanimous approval from fellow councillors when he asked that they write to the Government departments responsible for administering them asking that the rules be relaxed.
Aidan Weir, a senior engineer in the council's roads directorate, said they were also aware of the criteria restrictions and were themselves writing to the Government about them.
The Mayor of County Cork, Fianna Fáil councillor Gillian Coughlan, said it would make much more sense if departments provided local authorities with an idea of what they would get in grants under the two funding streams for a few years going forward, instead of just year by year.