New Ross councillors may soon require ‘bullet proof vests’ if roads in their district aren’t repaired

By Simon Bourke, Wexford People

Councillors in the New Ross Municipal District (NRMD) may have to start donning “bullet proof” vests if road repairs aren’t carried out in their area. Stressing the extent of the damage in his native Adamstown and its surrounds, Councillor Pat Barden said recent flooding and storms had left many of his constituents unable to access roads in their locality.

“I know we’ve applied for emergency funding for our roads, but we have lots of people saying they can’t get out onto their road because of the potholes,” said Cllr Barden at the March meeting of Wexford County Council (WCC). “We need to tell people when we’re going to receive funding and how much we’re going to get – if we don’t we’re going to have get bullet proof vests because people are really angry about this.

"They’re getting punctures, having to replace their shocks, their cars are constantly in the garage, this is a serious matter and people are fed up.”

Confirming that an application for funding to repair roads in rural areas had been submitted, director of services Eamonn Hore said the council was working on the proviso that money was forthcoming.

“Our district engineers are carrying out surveys across the county, it’ll be two weeks at least before we get an announcement of funding but we are going to receive something,” he said. “In the meantime we’re working on the basis we will get money because we can’t leave our roads in the state they are.”

One of the people regularly impacted by the parlous state of the roads in rural Co Wexford is Leo Booth. As an operator of a school bus he travels along some of the worst affected areas in the county and has the bills to show for it.

“The roads are in a terrible state, they have craters so deep you have to drive into them and then up out of them,” he said. “From Galbally to Adamstown they’re almost impassable, it’s only with the floods they’ve gotten so bad. I travel up and down a lot of the back roads and lanes and I’ve had three punctures in the last week, the only ones benefitting from this are the tyre companies."

Despite regular calls to WCC, Mr Booth said he is still waiting for repairs to be carried out.

“The only solution to this is to completely resurface the roads, there’s yellow dust coming up out of them now, the whole structure of them has been compromised.”