This article is from page 20 of the 2011-05-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 20 JPG
THE National Roads Authority (NRA) has not returned any correspondence made to it by the Mayor of Clare over the past year.
According to the Mayor of Clare, Christy Curtin (Ind), the NRA has snubbed a series of letters and questions from the county’s first citizen in relation to damage to signs in Clare for more then 12 months.
This information came to light following a motion at last nights meeting of Clare County Council, requesting that the local authority begins an immediate programme of restoration and maintenance on the existing roads direction signs.
“There has been defacing and vandalism of signs right across this county. Signs are continuing to be defaced – I saw a lot of it during the last general election,” said Cllr Curtin.
“I have been continually on to the NRA about the vandalism of signs and they have not been back to me once over the last 12 months.”
Speaking on the motion, North Clare councillor Joe Arkins (FG) also raised the issue of a number of misspellings on new signs recently erected by the NRA.
“I have a big issue with some of the information on these signs, there seems to be a number of towns and villages showing up all over Clare which I have never heard of before,” he said.
“Can we finally agree on what we call our towns and villages. Just because some sergeant made a mistake when he was translating from the Irish in the 1840s doesn’t mean that we have to keep living with that mistake forever.
“Some of the names on signs for our villages and towns is just unbelievable at the moment. It is a real issue and an inconvenience for tourists and people in the tourist sector.”
Place name and directional signs for a number of Clare’s flagship tourist town have been erected in recent months with spellings, which are not used by the locally. Among the towns who names have been spelt incorrectly are Lahinch, Bal- lyvaughan, Kinvara and Corofin.
“We are finding Burren Connect here in the council to improve tourism but if these signs are left in place we will have Burren disconnect. If people are coming home from America or wherever they are totally confused by the spellings on these signs,” said Cllr Michael Kelly (FG).
Clare County Council has been allocated € 10,000 as part of Civil Responsibility Week which the local authority plans to use for the maintenance of signs.