By Laura Glenn

laura.glenn@inishtimes.com

 

A tiny Inishowen road has caused a furious political storm.

The road at Carroughill, Drumfries has “dropped off” a list of projects earmarked for improvement over the next three years.

Instead, the funding for it – and for part-repairs on the Brae Road in Burnfoot – was switched to the Letterkenny electoral area.

This now means that the Carroughill Road, which is uneven, littered with potholes and covered in grass, will not be fixed this year.

The situation caused a blazing row at the reconvened Donegal County Council meeting on Monday.

Inishowens county councillors were furious at the switch.

They demanded to know why they were not informed.

The issue arose after Councillor Francis Conaghan put forward a motion asking for the council to discuss the prioritising of the countywide list of non-national roads.

He revealed that he received three different answers from John G McLaughlin of the roads department.

These all attempted to explain the funding switch.

However, he said although this “worried” him, he did not blame Mr McLaughlin, who “found it difficult” to get answers himself.

Councillor Conaghan said he was “fed up” taking decisions at electoral area only to discover they had been “changed in Lifford”.

Irate councillor Bernard McGuinness said the situation was “council administration versus elected members” and said he “would normally” call for the suspension of the official who made the decision.

He said: “The situation is very serious for Inishowen where we have very few national roads. All our money comes from non-national roads. “The money which comes to us [Donegal] is mostly generated because of the mileage of county roads and the majority of these are in Inishowen.

“It is galling that the money has been switched.”

Councillor Rena Donaghey – who fought to get the Drumfries road on the list – said Inishowen did not receive any reduction in funding this year.

She said: “In September last year, the Inishowen Electoral Area agreed a three-year road plan.We spent a lot of time finalising that plan.

“Now, we discover that two roads have disappeared off that list.

“If the money was cut I’d certainly accept that. But, I checked with the department [transport] in Dublin two months ago and I was assured that the money for 2008 was the same as the money for 2007 [3, 838,620 euro]. 

“Inishowen has a much larger network of roads than any electoral area in the county.

“It is important to note that no community assist work was done and no money was spent from that budget in Inishowen on health and safety grounds.

“I have asked and was successful in getting Carroughill on the list – to be done this year.

“We also agreed that the Brae Road was to be done this year.

“This is a very busy road with approximately 150 houses on it.

 “Money has gone into Letterkenny which has shifted from Inishowen and I am not prepared to accept this.”

Councillor Pádraig MacLochlainn said the situation occurred because of “mismanagement”.

He said: “There has been serious miscommunication between the roads department, councillors and enginneers.

“Councillors are working patiently with road engineers. You meet someone, they show you a road, you put it on the roads programme and it takes three or four years.

“In that time you’re trying to get some maintenance done. For a councillor to come around and say the works going to be done then to discover, quite frankly, mismanagement, it’s not going to work.

“It causes embarrassment and maybe whoever’s involved needs to be reprimanded.”

However, Letterkenny councillor Ciarán Brogan said the Inishowen councillors needed to stop playing “parish politics”.

He said: “You are getting lost in the whole initiative. Letterkenny, under government policy has been designated as a gateway town.

“Anyone who would sit in this chamber and not see Letterkenny as the employment and retail hub of Donegal, well, it’s about high time you invested in the town.

Reacting to protests and guffaws from Inishowen councillors he said he was “being serious”.

He said: “The council are only adopting government policy by putting extra money into Letterkenny. It’s high time parish politics stopped. Letterkenny is predicted to be a city and we need you to play your part.”

Johh G McLaughlin explained that Letterkenny was prioritised because of a new initiative called Small Area Population Solution (Saps).

This aims to direct money towards roads which have a higher volume of traffic.

He said: “The department asked for a three year list of roads. They didn’t ask by electoral area.

“Each area prioritises a list and then there is a master list.

“We took a look at the Saps next year and Letterkenny appeared to be the biggest benefactor. Most people would know that was going to happen from statistics.

“There were slight adjustments made  in compling the group and there was a reduction of about 1% for Inishowen, Glenties and Milford.

“This happened to be 0.98 per cent for Inishowen.

“Communication was poor when the decision was made to drop roads – they were not dropped but brought over to 2009. Burnfoot was at the bottom of the list and was presumed to be less of a priority, however apparently that’s not the case.

“There are two solutions, one is to reverse the decision but this makes it difficult to back out of a job for Letterkenny.

“The other is for more community assistance, to see of there is extra money there and make some local adjustments.

“The Brae Road will have two allocations for 2009. I wouldn’t agree with the suspension of staff or the comments made about mismanagement.

“It was down to communication, word should have went back to the councillors.”

However, Councillor Conaghan said he did not accept the explanation.

He said: “Who removed these roads and on what authority. What is our function here if the roads are going to be dropped and changed without communication.

“I fully endorse the Letterkenny area  but I would like to know what roads have been and will be  done. I drive over there every day and I don’t know.

“450,000 [euro] was robbed out of other areas, who took the decision and what was the protocol?

“There has been no clarification. John, I know you’ve had difficulty getting answers but it needs to be brought to attention some of the carry-on going on in roads.”