Concern that LIS monies not yet announced

Cavan County Council has formally sanctioned their already agreed roadworks programme for the year ahead, but it was path well worn that cropped up again for debate, and continues to cause concern among elected members.

Cavan has been allocated €15.1 million to spend on fixing the road network across the three municipal districts, up from €12.9m in 2019, and €10.7m the year before- an overall increase of over 40% in two years. The programme was officially signed-off on in an in-committee meeting.

Included in that funding is a specific improvement grant of €600,000 for the R194 Dunancorry Bridge widening scheme near Ballyjamesduff, and €100,000 towards progressing the East-West link from Dundalk to Sligo.

But it was Fianna Fail's John Paul Feeley who raise the matter of Local Improvement Schemes (LIS) first, stating it would be “remiss” of the elected members not to speak on such matters, with no funding yet allocated as the impasse over Government formalisation continues.

Such an announcement was made this time last year, when the Council received almost €270,000 to fund improvement works to non-public rural roads.

That funding was used to complete repairs to four approved roads in 2019.

The Council received €636,680 the year before, when approval was given for 11 roads, and work was carried out on 12 in 2018.

In 2017, 10 laneways received repair at a cost of €295,000. The allocation received was again significantly less than the near €770,000 originally applied for.

However, the Council's monthly meeting last Monday (March 9) heard that assessments have been carried out to 31 more LIS roads, which the cost estimated to be in the region of €2.2 million to fix, or an average of more than €70,967 per lane.

Some 127 LIS applications have been “partially” assessed meanwhile, costing and additional estimated €9.75m, or €76,771 per lane.

The remaining 71 lanes on the list have not yet been assessed, but some of those applications have been with the Council for more than 12 years, since 2008. The total bill to fix all could top €12 million, the meeting was informed.

Cllr Feeley went on to state that the Council were facing an uphill battle in struggling with such demands, and this was being exacerbated further by recent poor weather and rising flood waters.

Fellow party member Aidan Fitzpatrick estimated that at 2019 LIS funding levels it would take the County Council the best part of 50 years to get their way through the current backlog.

See next week's newspaper for full report.