Council supports workers who breached health and safety rules to fix pothole

Michael Cryan

There was unanimous cross party support for a motion which condemned the actions of Cork County Council who suspended three workers for repairing a pot hole, which they deemed a hazard.

Cavan County Council agreed to send a letter of support to the three men. The three men were suspended for carrying out urgent road maintenance in breach of council safety procedures.

The suspension was triggered because the repair crew allegedly began work without having two other staff to operate ‘stop-and-go’ traffic directions on either side of their truck.

They were assigned to repair a number of potholes and having completed their task, were on their way back to their council depot when they spotted another pothole. While this was not on their repair list, they deemed it was a potential road hazard which required immediate repair.

They were in the process of fixing the pothole when a health and safety inspector spotted that the work was under way.

Raising the issue at the April council meeting of Cavan County Council, Cllr Danny Brady of Fianna Fail said while he was in favour of health and safety, common sense needed to prevail. The men deemed the hole a hazard and filed it in.

If they had not filled it in and there had been an accident who would have been at fault, he enquired. He proposed that a message of support be sent to the men.

Fine Gael’s John O’Hare said, 'This is health and safety gone mad.' Between the three men they had over 70 years’ experience with the council. He supported the call to send a message of support to the men.

The rest of the members also supported the call.