This article is from page 28 of the 2010-02-02 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 28 JPG
COUNCILLORS for east Clare have called for measures to be put in place to ensure that another freeze won’t leave people stranded in their homes in this part of the county.
The chairman of the Killaloe Area Committee of the county council said the council response “was far too slow – it came two weeks too late”. The Fianna Fail councillor compli- mented the community efforts “but we felt powerless – we had no grit for people to spread. Thankfully there were no emergencies in some of the
areas that were completely cut off – short of the coastguard flying in and lifting people out of it, no-one could get to them.”
The members were making sug- gestions for the revised gritting plan which is now being drawn up. Cllr Pascal Fitzgerald (Lab) said more of the roads being used to get people into work need to be gritted. “Why can’t we have a situation where the erit is left at a designated point and then the community can help by spreading it?”
Cllr Cathal Crowe (FF) said that he felt road crew’s day off on January
5 “could have been put back. A few metres of grit would have sorted out villages like Parteen.”
Cllr Pat Burke (FG) said that the stretch from Cregg Cross to the county boundary needed gritting. “People were coming off gritted stretches on to this one stretch. It was dangerous.”
Cllr Joe Cooney said that he wants “all the regional roads gritted, then people can go on back roads to get on to them and get out”.
Cllr Michael Begley (Ind) that the Clonlara to Sixmilebridge must be included in any plan. “A lot of peo-
ple use that road to go to Shannon and it’s up and down the whole way. It was done in part but there were deadly icy patches and there were a number of unfortunate incidents.”
Senior Engineer, Sean Lenihan said that the majority of the council staff came back early from holidays and did not have the extra day off. “I can’t accept that the reaction was too slow – the staff were out all over Christmas.” He added that an emer- gency line was manned at all times. “No one locked the door behind them and went home to put their feet up. There was always staff on.”