Cork City Council received almost 2,500 complaints about footpaths over the last six years

Ellen O'Donoghue

Cork City Council received almost 2,500 complaints about footpaths over the last six years.

According to information released under the Freedom of Information Act to Cork City Councillor and Social Democrats general election candidate Pádraig Rice, the council was spending over €1m per year compensating people who injured themselves on broken footpaths.

This is twice the budget for footpath renewals, he said.

Cllr Rice tabled a motion calling for Cork to set a goal of being the most accessible city in Ireland.

To achieve this, the Council would have to undertake a disability access audit and an action plan to improve accessibility, alongside an annual report on the progress of the action plan.

“Since my election to the Council in June, I have been working hard on the issues of disability access, particularly in relation to fixing the footpaths in the city,” Cllr Rice said.

“I’ve tabled a motion at the City Council calling on the Council to set the goal of being the most accessible city in Ireland. It’s an ambitious goal – but I’m ambitious for Cork.

“To achieve this goal, we need to do a disability access audit to identify the key issues and places of concern – listening to the concerns of disabled people. Once that is done, I want the Council to draw up an action plan or to-do list and then report on this annually,” he said.

“The only way to fix the problem is to have a full understanding of the issues, a plan to fix them, and then do the work piece by piece. Publishing an annual report will ensure the Council is held to account.

Cllr Rice added that he is contacted regularly by people with disabilities telling him how hard it is to move around the city with broken footpaths, lack of drop kerbs, lack of zebra crossings, street clutter and broken pedestrian crossing signals.

“There are lots of things that need to be fixed. I’m going to keep the pressure on to make sure it happens.”