Are we going to have to wait until someone is killed

- Martin Shannon -

“Are we going to have to wait until someone is killed before the government listens to us?” asked Sinn Féin’s Pat Treanor at the Monday meeting of Monaghan County Council. He was speaking on a motion highlighting the dangers posed by flooding on the main Cavan to Dundalk road outside of Cootehill.
At the meeting, Monaghan county councillors called for an immediate meeting with the Minister for Transport and Tourism regarding the serious flooding on the route, which is the Cootehill to Ballybay stretch.
The motion was raised by Fianna Fáil councillor Seamus Coyle who stated that great inconvenience and suffering is being inflicted on the local residents living along this road. He told the council meeting, farmers along the road could not get their milk collected, hauliers and taxis could not travel and one woman said, only for a neighbour with a tractor, she would not have been bale to get out to get so much as a loaf of bread.
Cllr Coyle said this road is the main link from Cavan to Dundalk and is extremely dangerous after heavy rainfall. He said, in 2011, the road was closed for 11 days and for one week last year.
Cllr Hughie McElvaney said the big danger is, when this road is flooded, drivers cannot see where the grass verge is and the vehicle could topple into nearby fields.

€1.5m cost
Cllr Coyle said the engineering section of Monaghan County Council have estimated that the long-term resolution of the problem would cost up to €1.5 million, which would include pile driving, a ring beam construction and a 200mm concrete slab and 300mm of new road surface.
However, he added, the meeting with Minister Donohoe was to get an allocation of funding for the refurbishment/flood relief works as currently it is up to the local authority who are not allocated funding for such major works on regional roads.
The motion was passed unanimously.