Galway Bay fm newsroom – Galway County Council is coming under fire over the condition of the roads in the Athenry-Oranmore district.
This week’s meeting of the area’s councillors heard that 882 thousand euro has been earmarked for roads in the area in this years budget.
That’s less than half the funding granted to Ballinasloe of just under two million – and just a third of the amount allocated to Tuam of almost 2.5 million.
Councillor Frank Kearney said that the Athenry-Oranmore area is one of the busiest in the entire county – and the current system of allocating funding per kilometre of road is ridiculous.
Councillor James Charity told the meeting that the miniscule allocations are the direct cause of serious problems on all major traffic routes across the district.
His colleague Jim Cuddy drew attention to the huge number of ‘rat runs’ taken by commuters to avoid the main routes, which he claims are in a terrible condition as a result.
Councillor James Charity says that despite having the busiest roads in the county, Athenry-Oranmore gets just ten percent of the overall roads budget.