Councillor expresses his frustration at inaction of council officials

WHILE cllr Paschal McEvoy complemented the council staff for the work that they are doing in the Graiguecullen/Portarlington Municipal District, he didn’t hold back when he lashed into council officials for not carrying out work that they said they would do for him.

Speaking at the October district council meeting he said: “I don’t like being negative. But.” 

 He said he and a number of residents met council officials about six-months ago in relation to the installation of passing bays along the Athy Road and were given assurances that the bays would be installed in a short while.

“Nothing has been done. I sent on a saucy email, which I didn‘t get a reply to. I’m concerned in relation to how the work is being split up. That road continued on down to the Kildare border. All the bays from where I started back to the border were all done and back up to the N80 by an outside contractor.

“These people are now saying to me, why aren’t ours being done. We’re all in the municipal district. There’re two different operations going on and it’s not fair to be brutally honest. I’m being treated differently, and that part of the road is being treated different.” 

He said: “It makes no sense to me that I was told that the work I asked for was being done by council workers from our side of the district. But we’re the one municipal district. To date nothing has been done. I was told there were 10 bays to go to where I was looking for them back to the Ballykilcavan Brewery. I was told the work was going to be done before the local elections. But it wasn’t done. The elections are over so I’m not looking for votes with this. I’m just looking for fair play.” 

Cllr McEvoy said: “There’s other roads that were pulled in my area. It wasn’t just this one. I’ve since learned there was a second one pulled. There was 100s of 1,000s of euros in relation to doing roads but still roads were pulled in my area. I’m not happy.

“There were a lot of motions I put in over the past 12 months (looking for works to be carried out). Nothing has been done on them. When I questioned the boys (council officials) I’m told there’s no money to do this or that.

“Well, there’s money there now to do the bays on one half of the road, but none to do the other half of the road. Is that fair? It isn’t fair in my world anyway. Are these bays going to be done this year, the 10 that were promised last February?” 

Cathaoirleach of the district council cllr Aidan Mullins said: “I totally understand your frustration. From the history of this promised road work and how it panned out I think you were hard done by. I think that you were the subject to a mighty backlash over this. Promises were made to you and you were the one blamed for not having it carried out. I thought that was totally unfair. If it was on the roads programme, I don’t understand why it wasn’t carried out. I can understand weather or budget restrictions as to why it wasn’t carried out, but I would have thought that you would have been notified earlier to say that it mightn’t happen this year. I thought that you were left out to dry on this.” 

Cllr McEvoy was informed that the council was still committed to installing the passing bays and a price would be sought from a contractor to carry out the work.