Householders may be forced to clear snow

MINISTER FOR Transport Noel Dempsey is to consider imposing a statutory obligation on people to clear snow and ice from footpaths outside their premises without incurring any liability for negligence.

Mr Dempsey told the Oireachtas transport committee yesterday that he might “positively legislate” to make householders and business people in urban areas responsible for keeping pavements clear during severe weather.

“It’s something that I think will definitely have to be considered without any liability if somebody has an accident,” he said.

The Minister said the “biggest legacy” of the recent extreme weather crisis was the number of people hurt by falls on ice.

Labour TD Tommy Broughan described these injuries as “Dempsey fractures”.

Mr Broughan said people were “incandescent with anger” at Mr Dempsey’s performance during the bad weather.

“Your performance in this has been deplorable and would be a resignation matter in many countries.” He added: “The whole Government went AWOL.”

Mr Dempsey described Mr Broughan’s comments as “a lot of political hoo-ha, as usual”. In the event of another spell of similarly bad weather, the level of road gritting that was carried out by local authorities would be exactly the same, he said.

The Minister said some 14,000km of road had been gritted every day and sometimes more than once a day, while more than 261 gritting trucks and 180 snow ploughs were deployed.

He said it was unlikely that a substantial increase in the number of roads gritted could be justified and it would never be practical to treat the entire road network of 96,000km.

Both central and local government had begun a review of their response to the crisis, he confirmed. Consideration would be given to whether or not the earlier activation of “emergency co-ordination structures” would have affected their response.

A number of committee members, including Fine Gael TD Shane McEntee, called on the Minister to make more money available to local authorities as a matter of urgency. Mr McEntee also said Mr Dempsey should increase the State’s supply of salt.

Mr Dempsey said his department did not have an emergency financial reserve. He said he advised local authorities to set aside contingency sums within their overall roads funding for weather-related works. Local authorities and the National Roads Authority (NRA) were in the process of calculating the additional costs involved over and above the normal provisions.

He said about 60,000 tonnes of salt was spread over the period, more than the total annual average used in recent years.

Mr Dempsey said local authorities typically maintained 10 days supply of salt for prioritised roads, “and this is more than adequate for most years”.

The costs and benefits of maintaining a supply to cover a longer period would be considered, however.

The committee’s chairman, Fianna Fáil TD Frank Fahey told the Minister that surfacing roads by “tarring and chipping” was “the greatest waste of money possible”.

Potholes should be patched properly with tarmacadam, which would cost more money but be more effective.

Mr Dempsey said it was well-recognised that a lot of damage had been done to roads. Some local authorities would have to spend more on roads.

Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil TD Noel Ahern suggested people had been lulled into a false sense of security by the mild winters of recent years. “I think we might be over-believing this airy fairy global warming stuff.”