Wexford council admits it is ‘wasting money’ on filling potholes as councillor says she ‘failed NCT again’ because of poor roads

By Simon Bourke, Wexford People

Wexford County Council (WCC) has admitted that it is “wasting money” on filling potholes during the winter as the works generally don’t last more than three weeks. Speaking at the January meeting of WCC, director of roads Eamonn Hore said the council was spending “€5m-6m on pothole repairs” annually on roads which had “structurally failed”.

“We are wasting money on filling potholes, we’re spending €5m-6m on pothole repairs but if you’re spending that much money on potholes it basically means the road has structurally failed,” he said. “We have made our case to the department (of roads) umpteen times, have asked for additional money, and we continue to ask for money.”

Mr Hore was responding to comments made by Councillor Aoife Rose O’Brien who said road repairs carried out in her locality had barely made it through Christmas.

"In December there were three very large potholes right outside my door, I contacted the district engineer and his team were out very quickly and they put proper tarmacadam in,” said the councillor. “Those repairs lasted three weeks. If this is the level of reconstruction works we’re carrying out then we’re just wasting our money. Do we need to assess the materials we’re using? I failed my NCT again this year because of the roads in our district.”

Cllr O’Brien was supported by her Rosslare colleague Jim Codd who said the only ones benefitting from the condition of the roads in south Wexford were the local tyre companies.

“At the moment Maloney Tyres are making a fortune out of places like Ardinagh Lane, they are the happiest people you could imagine and I wish them the very best,” he said. “But we can’t leave that road get worse, it’s not fit to walk on, never mind drive on.”

There was at least a hint positivity regarding the condition of the county’s roads however, as Mr Hore revealed that the number of roads classified as “really bad” was decreasing across the board.

“The percentage of our primary roads classified as really bad has gone from 28 pc to 17 pc, secondary roads have gone from 48 pc to 26 pc, and there’s been a 5 pc reduction on our tertiary roads,” he said. “So it shows that, given the funding, we can improve the roads. You can look at pothole repairs as a waste of money, but if we don’t do those works it’ll be a lot worse.”