€15m extra agreed to for fallout of weather

MINISTER FOR the Environment John Gormley is to provide €15 million in extra funding for local authorities facing additional financial burdens in coping with the weather.

Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey said the National Roads Authority had confirmed that “adequate salt stocks are in place nationally and are being distributed to local authorities as required to meet the priorities laid out”.

Pressed by Simon Coveney (FG, Cork South-Central) about the adequacy of salt supplies during a Dáil debate on the Arctic weather conditions, he said “we have 36,500 tonnes of salt on the island. We have a call on 1,000 tonnes in Northern Ireland if we need to do it. Up to 6,000 tonnes will arrive before December 10th, 15,000 tonnes on December 16th, 10,000 on December 22nd and a further 30,000 tonnes to come in pre-Christmas. The bad weather spell is due to start abating on Wednesday” and “there are adequate salt supplies to cover us”.

He urged homeowners and business operators to clear snow from in front of their premises, pointing to the advice of the Attorney General that people “will not be held legally liable as long as they do not create an additional safety hazard by their actions”. He said there were 90,000km of road in the State and 2,500 footpaths in the Dublin area alone and “it will not be possible to treat all of them”.

During the debate Joanna Tuffy (Labour, Dublin Mid-West) expressed concern that many young people were “throwing snowballs at cars and they are doing damage to the cars. I experienced it myself the other night and it is quite dangerous”.

Minister for Defence Tony Killeen acknowledged that it was a problem in some areas. He said “the behaviour of a small minority of citizens, pedestrians and others, has been extremely unhelpful. The presence of gardaí­ has been strategically used to try to deal with that in the key places.”

Outlining the Government response to the weather conditions, Mr Gormley told the Dáil that despite the “best pre-planning, the intensity and duration of the weather is stretching the financial resources of local authorities”. While he was “satisfied that this disruption will be limited to what is unavoidable” he would “make available €15 million for those local authorities that are most in need of supplementary funding, as a contribution to their exceptional costs over and above the costs they ordinarily would be expected to meet in the context of yearly winter weather demands”.

Mr Gormley said many lessons had been learned since the snow storms of January and the Government taskforce interagency response group was working effectively with all the State agencies involved.

Mr Dempsey said “the current contract for salt supply was 80,000 tonnes”. This time last year “we had only 10,000 tonnes of salt in stock”. Adequate supplies were in place and distributed as required. “In addition, the NRA invested €6 million this year in acquiring additional dry storage facilities for de-icing salt and a further €2.5 million for grit spreads and snow blades.”

Mr Coveney, who estimated there were sufficient salt supplies for about nine days with 3,500 tonnes used a day, said it was “not unreasonable to ask that local authorities would salt main pavements in towns and cities in Ireland, as is the norm in the vast majority of other European cities”.

But Mr Dempsey said “everybody believes the pavement outside their door is the main one”. The plan “is to ensure priority routes that are necessary to keep the country going, are salted and kept open. ”

The Government has rescheduled Dáil business to debate and pass the Social Welfare Bill in the aftermath of the budget on Tuesday.