New Ross Councillors Hit Out At Storm Chandra Roads Funding

Wexford’s local radio station

Councillors in the New Ross District say yesterday’s emergency roads funding announcement was a disappointment for their area.

The county has been allocated almost €13.5 million to fix roads destroyed by Storm Chandra, the highest allocation awarded to any local authority.

However, an assessment by engineers in the county put the repairs’ price tag closer to €30 million.

Independent councillor John Dwyer says we’re slapping ourselves on the back for nothing:

"€13.4 million comes nowhere near the requirement which was provided by professional engineers.

"When those engineers came back with a figure of €30 million, I would have assumed that the figure the Government would provide would have been close to that.

"Not half than that, in fact, less than half of the amount."

Councillor Dwyer also accused the Government of listening to the needs of accountants over its own engineers.

He feels the penny pinching will have real consequences for the area:

"The word of those engineers, their professional credentials were being cast aside by accountants who decided this is how much we’re going to give you.

"All the professional assessment that was done was basically binned."

His sentiments are echoed by fellow Independent councillor Michael Sheehan who says the funding is just a drop in the ocean of what they need.

He says the New Ross district alone needed 12 million euro for road repairs and the eventual funding will only reach around 15 to 20 kilometres.

"It shows the abject failure by our TDs to make the case for Wexford and we can congratulate and say it’s fantastic and we lobbied hard, but they didn’t lobby hard enough because we were looking for €30 million and we only got a fraction of it."

That report was funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.