Portarlington Graiguecullen gets just €76,000 of €3.3 million of active travel allocation, meeting told

A council meeting heard claims of a ‘footpath to nowhere’ being built in Portlaoise while funding was refused for a footpath for school children at Timahoe.  

The council meeting was told Portarlington Graiguecullen received just €76,000, a little over two percent, of a €3.3 million active travel allocation for Laois.

Councillors discussed the issue after being told there were no funds to make a path safe for school children in Timahoe. 

The meeting was told that council staff salaries accounted for 8.2 percent of the Active Travel allocation, while the Portlaoise area got 77 percent and Borris-in-Ossory got 12 percent of the funding. 

The issue arose when Cllr Paschal McEvoy put down a motion in the interest of school childen’s safety in Timahoe.   

He asked: “That this Council provide a footpath from the new houses on the Stradbally Road to the School in Timahoe.”

A written response from Senior Executive Engineer, Active Travel Office, Diarmuid Donohue was read at the meeting: 

“The NTA has not provided funding under Active Travel Scheme for the delivery of this scheme in 2023,” it read. 

“It’s a crazy situation,” said Cllr McEvoy.  

“This is essential to get this work done for the school. It’s children’s safety is at risk,” said Cllr McEvoy, “It is a matter of health and safety there is children walking down the road,” he remarked. 

Cllr McEvoy appealed to his council colleagues to use their €25,000 discretionary fund. He said it was the only way he could see the “essential” work  being carried out. 

Cllr Aisling Moran described the response to the motion as “pure and utter bullshit”.  She said Active Travel had given an allocation of €3.3 million to Laois. 

“Portlaoise Municipal District is 38 percent of the population, Borris-in-Ossory area is 29 percent of the population and the Graiguecullen Portarlington is 33 percent. Portlaoise Municipal District gets €2,543,000, that’s 77 percent of that budget for the whole county.  Borris-in-Ossory got €410,000, which is 12 percent of the budget. The salary of €271,000 is 8.2 percent of that budget, which I don’t think it should have been coming out of that anyway and then the Graiguecullen Portarlington area gets, wait for this lads, €76,000. We get 2.3 percent of the Active Travel budget and you make a statement that children walking out of Timahoe School, you want to make us pay for them because you want to spend all this money in Portlaoise," she said. 

"Out of this  €2.5 million for the Portlaoise Municipal District, €2,080,000 is what is being spent in Portlaoise town,” she said. 

“You are telling me that out of €3.3 million you cannot get enough money to put a footpath in Timahoe. I think it is an absolute disgrace,” she said. 

Cllr Moran demanded to know who had decided on the budget. She asked for a list of all the spending with a low carbon focus in the Portlaoise area from 2017 up to now.  She asked for a full breakdown of the projects and a similar breakdown of the spend in Laois’s two other municipal districts. 

“All the money is going to Portlaoise. We have more towns in this county than Portlaoise and I would like equal money spent on them. How are you going to make towns better if you won’t spend money on it?” she asked. 

“We got €76,000 for our municipal district, we should be fighting for our share of it and our share of it, if you are to do it proportionally, Portlaoise should be getting €1.254 million, the Borris area should be getting €957,000 and our Municipal area should be getting €1, 089,000, not €76,000,” she said. 

“We are getting €1,013,000 less than we should be getting,” she told the meeting. 

Director of Services, Gerry Murphy said the body that gave the money decided where the money was going. 

“Was our area not put in?” asked Cllr Moran. 

Cllr Aidan Mullins asked if it was true to say the municipal district had only received 2.3 percent of the allocation. 

Cllr Ben Brennan said the councillors were entitled to an answer in relation to the issue. 

Mr Murphy said “I’m sure as part of the Manager’s report at the February meeting there will be a list of the schemes that have been approved for 2023.”

Cllr Moran informed Mr Murphy that that is where she had obtained the figures. 

“The active travel programme is a rolling programme,” said Mr Murphy. He said if you look at 2022, money will have been spent in Portarlington. 

“It’s not the issue of whether it is acceptable or not. Those are the figures that we have been advised,” said Mr Murphy. 

Cllr McEvoy said while Cllr Moran was making a good point but there was an urgent need to get the Timahoe footpath work done and it needed the discretionary money. 

Cllr Aidan Mullins also felt Cllr Moran was making a good point. However, he acknowledged it was a rolling programme as the Director had said and the councillors couldn’t rule out the possibility that the spend balanced out over a number of years. 

“I don’t know is it as bad as that, that one area is prioritised over the rest,” he remarked. 

Mr Murphy cited a permeability study for Portarlington which would inform the next allocation. 

“I think you do need to look at it in the overall. There are a number of years involved in this. It  started back in 2020,” he remarked. 

“Obviously 2023 figures have been advised and then obviously going into 2024, 2025 there will be further applications,” he said.  

Cllr Padraig Fleming backed the proposal seeking discretionary funding for Timahoe. He  said he agreed with the thrust of what Cllr Moran had said. He said there were dangerous footpaths in the area. “To make footpaths safe what is the cost?” he asked.  

“To get €76,000 and now for the next year we can do nothing in all those areas because the local management haven’t  got the money to do those footpaths, I don’t know where the bigger picture is,” said Cllr Fleming.

“I can’t understand why there’s not a small amount left there for local villages, smaller towns, just to deal with the dangerous ones. I am not even talking about new ones,”  he said. 

“It’s not fair and it’s not fair play either,” he said. 

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Cllr Ben Brennan said supported both Cllr Moran and Cllr McEvoy. 

“I came up the road here today and I saw a footpath going nowhere, the John Adams car park,” he said.

“A footpath to nowhere as far as I can see, to get rid of money. They’ve no need of it,” said Cllr Brennan. 

Cllr PJ Kelly said there was no doubt that all councillors agreed with Cllr Moran but the immediate problem was the school path at Timahoe. He too offered his backing to Cllr McEvoy’s proposal. 

Cllr McEvoy said the work needs to be done now and the only option was to use the discretionary fund. He said Cllr Moran had the support of all the councillors and the matter could be raised again at the monthly council meeting. 

The councillors then agreed use the discretionary fund to carry out footpath works in Timahoe.