Contractor accepts liability after Laois road surface disappears

A PRIVATE contractor has accepted liability for failed road surface dressing, which was washed away during heavy rain on a busy Laois route.

The contractor has agreed to resurface the stretch of road at Pike of Rushall on the R445, following a meeting with county council staff. The work is due to go ahead between April and June this year.

Located on the main route between Mountrath and Borris-in-Ossory, the section of road was resurfaced last October but the dressing disappeared shortly afterwards.

“It’s nearly worse now than before the work was done,” Cllr Conor Bergin told the December meeting of Borris-in-Ossory/Mountmellick Municipal District (MD).

Cllr Bergin asked Laois Co Council staff to contact the contractor responsible for carrying out the works at Pike of Rushall, saying that the road surface “needs to be fixed'”.

He said: “The work was done in October but it wasn’t done correctly and the surface came off again straight away.” 

In a written response, a council official said MD area office staff met with the surfacing contractor, who was not identified, ‘following failure of the surface dressing’.

The official said: ‘The contractor accepted liability for the failure and will resurface this section of roadway in Q2 of 2026.’ 

Senior engineer Rory O’Callaghan told the MD meeting that the road surface dressing was put down just before very heavy rain, at a location that sees very heavy traffic.

Welcoming the response, Cllr Bergin said it was good to hear that the contractor had accepted responsibility and that the work would be done soon.