Tipperary footpaths funding warning after woman breaks teeth in fall
Footpaths in the Nenagh district will continue to be neglected unless additional funding is provided, a council engineer has warned.
This comes as local representatives highlighted the case of a woman in Nenagh who had fallen twice on damaged footpaths in the town. The second time she fell, she broke several teeth.
That was according to independent councillor Seamie Morris at the September meeting of the Nenagh Municipal District (MD), who was highlighting the state of footpaths around the town and the district.
“We’re not doing a good job of chasing up people who are responsible for reinstating these footpaths or walkways,” Cllr Morris said.
“A pedestrian fell on the walkway at Northville, and it is her second fall. She fell down the town last year, and she didn’t do anything about it, but this time she broke teeth.
“This is a very busy walkway and there is kind of a half-attempt at a footpath, but actually, most people walk on the road.
“There’s no point putting in shortcuts unless we maintain them,” he added.
Cllr Morris described the Birr Road and Northville side of Nenagh as a “disgrace”, saying some footpaths were closed off because of unsafe walls, while signs and bollards were widespread.
He described the area as resembling a “bollard jungle”.
In response, district engineer Barry Murphy said that the paths in the district would continue to be neglected unless additional funding was allocated from central Government.
“Over the last few years, we did a tremendous amount of work on footpaths when we had budgets, we had a budget from Irish Public Bodies (IPB — the council’s insurer), we had Active Travel, and we could spend those funds on footpaths, so we did.
Footpath funding used to come from IPB, Mr Murphy explained, in an attempt to reduce the number of claims against councils for falls on damaged footpaths across the country.
“The Active Travel funding is now for bigger projects, so we don’t get that, and the IPB funding is gone. Had we got the budgets now, we would definitely be out fixing footpaths. They need to be replaced,” Mr Murphy explained.
“Some footpaths have historically been neglected, and they will be neglected going forward unless something changes, purely because of the absence of finance for them. We would absolutely love to be out fixing these footpaths,” he added.