Council urged to add two Tipperary roads to salting programme in wake of snow emergency

Tipperary County Council has come under pressure to add two roads serving Mullinahone to its winter salting programme or pay farmers to grit them during freezing weather in the wake of treacherous driving conditions on the routes during the recent snow and ice.

But Cllr Imelda Goldsboro wasn’t given much hope by council officials when she called for the Mullinahone to Urlingford Road and Mullinahone to Callan Road to be included in the Council’s Winter Service Programme at Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District’s January meeting.

She pointed out that both are busy regional roads that were not getting salted. She said Kearney's Hill on the Mullinahone to Urlingford Road was “treacherous” during the recent weather emergency. A lorry was stuck on this hill for six hours one day and vehicles crashed on it.

Carrick Municipal District Engineer Denis Power responded that the Council could look at Cllr Goldsboro’s request but stressed the local authority’s resources are stretched at the moment dealing with the priority roads currently on the programme.

“I understand that they are regional roads and people use them a lot but to add them on, we literally don’t have the capacity to do it at the moment.

Senior Council Roads Engineer Kieran Malone agreed. He explained the Council would need to recruit more drivers qualified to work on the winter roads maintenance programme and getting such people to work on the programme was getting harder and harder.

“We are doing the maximum we can with the money we have at the moment,” he said adding that the Council spent €1m on keeping the routes on its winter service programme gritted and clear of snow and ice during the week of the snow and ice.

Cllr Goldsboro said she couldn’t accept the Council’s response because residents along these roads are paying road tax. She suggested the Council put a proposal together to get funding from Transport Infrastructure Ireland to cover the costs of getting farmers to grit these two roads.

“It’s not going to cost a significant amount of money to do these two stretches of road,” she argued.

She pointed out that this investment would save the Council having to spend money bringing out crews to clear these roads of vehicles stranded in the ice.

Mr Malone promised to raise Cllr Goldsboro’s proposal with council management but stressed he wasn’t opimistic of it being accepted unless extra funding was secured.