Confusion over missing €200,000 allocation for Laois path the council say was €100,000

Confusion continues as Laois County Council now say a €200,000 funding allocation for a Timahoe footpath in 2022 was actually €100,000 and the proposed project would now cost €815,000. 

Fianna Fáil Cllr Paschal McEvoy asked in a motion: “That Laois County Council provide a Footpath/Bicycle Lane from Timahoe Village to the Gaa Grounds. Funding of €200,000 was approved for this project under Active Travel.”

In a lengthy written response, Laois County Council’s Active Travel Engineer stated that “in 2022, the National Transport Authority(NTA) allocated €100,000 for the Timahoe Village Cycle Lane Link project. However, this project did not progress within that calendar year.” 

It continued: “Laois County Council has since delivered several footpath schemes and has prepared a preliminary high-level cost estimate for this particular project. The estimated cost is approximately €815,000 (including VAT). Please note that this figure does not account for risk, contingency, or inflation. This cost represents a significant portion of the county's overall Active Travel allocation,” the unnamed engineer wrote. 

Cllr McEvoy said he wasn’t accepting the answer. “My recollection is that it was €200,000 not €100,000.” 

He said in 2022 he had put down a motion requesting a footpath to the sports ground in Timahoe. He was told to apply for funding under active travel and when he did, the money was allocated. 

“I followed it up after a few months and was told they were doing the prep work on the footpath over to the football field,” he said.  He explained that he was then informed that the project was to start in October.

“I subsequently got a phone call from the roads department to say that was a mistake,” he recalled. In that phone call he was told that they were doing the groundwork and everything would be in order to start in February. However, Cllr McEvoy said nothing was done to progress the project.

Cllr McEvoy said the footpath that is needed is about a mile long and there is a wide margin along the road.  He said he is unaware of what happened to the funding allocation. 

“I just can’t understand how we got €200,000 from Active Travel to do a footpath and I was told it was happening,” he said. 

“This is a complete absolute contradiction of what I was told up to now,” said Cllr McEvoy.  

”The fact that we were given funding and told it was going to happen. I just don’t understand it. I genuinely don’t. Whether I am being told lies, I don’t want to call anyone a liar,” he said.

He noted Ballyroan, a village of similar size to Timahoe, got funding around the same time. He said they now have “a fabulous” footpath up to their football pitch. “Same size as Timahoe, two pubs and one shop,” he said. 

He described the estimate of €815,000 as “absolutely crazy” and said if the community were given €200,000 they’d have the work done in a fortnight. 

Cllr McEvoy said a campaign was beginning in Timahoe over the issue. He said “there is great stories about this” and he had even received a phone call from someone in Timahoe who had heard the money had been redirected for the work on the courthouse in Borris-in-Ossory. 

Cllr McEvoy said he had no idea where the money had gone. “This appeared in the local papers as well, people were reading it, now they are wondering, where is the money gone,” he said. 

He asked the council to make enquiries about what actually happened with the funding. 

“This is not fair. It is not fair to the people of Timahoe or the people of rural Laois in general,” he said. 

READ ALSO: Mystery over €200,000 path funding

“Somebody is not telling the truth. I don’t know what is going on,” he said. 

Director of Finance Julie Bergin said she wasn’t aware of the situation. “I will follow up with the Active Travel section,” she said. 

Independent Cllr and Chair of Portarlington Graiguecullen Municipal District, Aidan Mullins, told Cllr McEvoy that the council members had witnessed his frustration with the issue over the years.  “It seems that you were strung along. Whether by accident or by design I don’t know,” said Cllr Mullins.  

Fine Gael Cllr Vivienne Phelan said “we have to get answers to what actually happened here” and put it in the public domain in terms of what was promised and what is going to be delivered and “where the confusion set in”.

Independent Cllr Aisling Moran said she recalled Cllr McEvoy’s motions on the subject. “You had been told that was going to be sorted,” she said. 

She said it wasn’t Timahoe’s fault the pathway wasn’t done. She asked how allocated funding- if it was taken back- could be taken back from an area even though they were without fault in terms of progressing the project.  

The issue was discussed at the May monthly meeting of Portarlington Graiguecullen Municipal  District.