On 15th March 2021 a lorry carried too much speed into the corner on the Carrickmacross Road and overturned onto the footpath. Luckily there was no pedestrians on the path at that time and the driver was not seriously injured.

Lighting and footpath ‘black-spots’ raised

Cavan County Council is being asked to survey all footpaths and lighting in the county in order to identify potential “blackspots” that given rise to a multitude of accidents, whether pedestrian or motor.

“It's something I've raised before,” said Aontú's Sarah O'Reilly.

The Bailieborough-based representative had raised a number of potential problem sites in her own area. They included on the Kingscourt Road, Cavan Road, at Curkish and Lisnalea.

She also called for improved lighting and footpaths in Shercock on the Carrickmacross Road where a recent accident saw a lorry overturned.

“It would help to have an idea when the works would be done,” Cllr O'Reilly remarked at the recent meeting of the Bailieborough-Cootehill Municipal District, held online.

She received support for her motion from Fianna Fáil's Aiden Fitzpatrick, who said he had received representations from concerned members of the public regarding sites in Cootehill.

Fianna Fáil's Clifford Kelly suggested there needed to be a specific allocation of additional funding from central government for footpaths and public lighting.

Fine Gael's Carmel Brady also supported the motion, further suggesting that, where housing estates were built in urban areas, footpaths linking with the nearest town centre should be included as part of the development.

She added that bonds lodged by builders with the council should be retained otherwise.

Senior Engineer Alan Lyons noted that the upkeep of such infrastructure depended on funding streams coming available.

He said footpaths and lighting were “hand in glove” with each other, and that there were 6,700 public lights in Cavan, 53% of which had been upgraded to new energy saving LED.

In 2019, €610,000 was spent on the process, and there was hope for further investment in future.