Cork County Council have confirmed that they are considering buying their own line-painting machine for roads, as Cllr Danny Collins (Ind Ire) made the point at a recent meeting that faded lines at junctions and other intersections across the county are a major health and safety issue.
‘We need to have our own truck on the road. It’s a major health and safety issue where you come up to a junction and the lines and boxes are faded and you don’t know where to stop,’ said Cllr Collins.
He was speaking at a Council meeting late in March after Cllr Jack White (FG) sought information on how often the road lining contractors were in each municipal district last year.
Cllr White also called for a better system to be implemented, whereby contractors could be present for a block of work in each area at least once every three months.
Cllr Collins said that it seems that no one knows when the contractors will turn up, and they are gone before any public representatives are even aware of it.
Meanwhile, Cllr White said that if councillors knew when the contractors were coming, they could give them a list of areas to be tackled via the Council area office.
The Council did not disclose how many times the contractors were in each municipal district in 2024.
Carrigaline Cllr Audrey Buckley (FF), who had previously raised similar motions on the issue, said she can’t understand why the local authority can’t get their own line marking machine with their own staff, while county mayor Cllr Joe Carroll (FF) echoed Cllr Collins sentiment about buying their own machine.
Divisional manager Niall Healy said there is no dedicated funding stream for road lining for regional and local roads, while it the responsibility of Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) for national roads.
He added that arrangements for quarterly municipal district reporting on road lining will be put in place going forward, whereby area engineers will provide members with information regarding planned road lining works.
Saying that the Council area engineers would make ‘every effort’ to let councillors know in advance of planned road lining works, he cautioned that this might not be possible.
‘Given the lead-in times for contractors, it should be noted that in some cases works may be scheduled at short notice.’
He also confirmed that the Council were looking at options to buy their own machine, and would report back on the matter.
