Carrick-on-Suir's Main Street in 'deplorable' condition after water mains works, council told

The condition of Carrick-on-Suir's Main Street was condemned at a council meeting last week as “deplorable” and a hazard for road users after the recent completion of water mains installation works.

Carrick-on-Suir Cllr Kieran Bourke sharply criticised the state of the street following the reinstatement of the roadway by Uisce Éireann contractors. He issued the criticism at Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District’s monthly meeting last Thursday.

The Fianna Fáil councillor said there were craters and potholes on the street and acknowledged the “horrendous” wet weather made reinstatement of the roadway difficult for the contractors.

He pointed out that cyclists were coming to him complaining about the difficulties they were having cycling on the street.

Cllr Bourke, who stressed he wasn’t blaming the council for this situation, outlined that the resintatement of parts of the street was excellent as bitumen was used but in other areas just tarmac was used and potholes were arising causing a hazard to road users.

He asked Carrick-on-Suir MD Engineer Michael Scully what he proposed to do about the problem and asked what happened in the case of a claim arising from an accident due to the condition of the road.

Would the council be held responsible or the utility’s contractor who carried out the reinstatement works, he asked.
Carrick-on-Suir MD Cathaoirleach Cllr David Dunne, who is also from Carrick, agreed the Main Street’s road surface was in a bad way and he believed patching work wouldn’t do much good.

The Sinn Féin councillor said the standard of road reinstatement by utilities was a “hobby horse” of his. It was “not good enough,” he declared.

District Engineer Michael Scully agreed that Carrick's Main Street was in a “bad way” due to a combination of bad weather and a lot of works being carried out on the street over the last while.

“There is a lot of traffic on that road, which doesn’t help,” he added.

He agreed that the council’s patching machine was the fix for the problem on the street.

While some patching work will be done, the council will resurface the really “problematic” sections. He pointed out that any patching work done on the street will only be an “intermediate measure” to get the street usable again.

Cllr Bourke asked why the council should pick up the bill for these repair works when the issue was caused by an Uisce Éireann contractor?

Mr Scully explained the roadway on Main Street has been deteriorating for the last few years and this recent Uisce Éireann project wasn’t the sole cause of the problem.

Other legacy jobs on the street also contributed to the problem.

He said he hadn’t the power to go back to all the contractors that have done work on the street in the past few years and he couldn't go back to Uisce Éireann and say they have to pay when they haven’t been the cause of all the problems. “Unfortunately, it’s our problem to fix.”

He pointed out that there was still snagging to be done on the street and any bitumen that needs to be layed will be layed.

“I completely acknowledge the point you make. Funding is going to have come from our budget which could be spent elsewhere,” he added.

In response to Cllr Bourke’s query about where responsibility lay in the case of an accident claim, Mr Scully said he hadn’t received a clear answer when he queried this. He believed the responsibility would probably fall between both the council and the contractor.

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