Cork City Council pays out €10k on 150 pothole claims over 18 months

CORK City Council spent more than €10,000 on pothole claims over an 18 month period, The Echo can reveal.

Information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows that, between January 2019 and June 2020, City Hall spent €10,461.25 on 150 public liability claims made against the local authority.

These 150 claims related to potholes in the region. The Echo recently revealed that more than one complaint per day was made about potholes in Cork city over the same 18 month period.

Information obtained from City Hall shows that between January 2019 and June 2020, 885 complaints were made about potholes across Cork city.

Cllr Terry Shannon (FF) said he was not surprised to see €10,000 used to deal with pothole claims in Cork.

He said the money set aside to deal with such claims should be spent on the public realm in a bid to avoid claims in the first place.

Cllr Shannon said the public realm has “deteriorated significantly” in recent years and that he hopes money raised through increased property tax will go towards improvements in Cork.

He recently said members of the public have compared parts of Cork city to ‘the Somme after the battle’.

“Previously, we had a roads programme where the budget was broken up into traffic calming, footpath renewals, estate resurfacing and more,” he added.

“That all went by the wayside and during the crash, the money for that type of work just wasn’t there.

“Now, we’re playing catch-up.” Cllr Shannon said roads are going from bad to worse because of poor repair practices that only temporarily address the issue.

“We see it around the city - a pothole pops up and a fella’ with a shovel comes along, pours some cement in and taps it down with the shovel - that doesn’t work,” he said.

Fellow City Councillor Dan Boyle (Greens) recently called for a national policy to address the poor level of resources for road maintenance.

“Potholes are a constant problem,” he said.

“It’s been a negative cycle because you need the resources to do the repairs.

“Instead, band aid repairs are being carried out that only eliminates the pothole for a short amount of time, and it reappears in no time at all,” he added.

Cork City Council was contacted for comment.