Donegal County Council is set to call on the new Transport Minister for extra funding to expand its gritting programme to busy secondary routes.
The request comes following a motion raised by Councillor Donal Coyle, who said that a special case should be made for Donegal.
“We here in Donegal get a lot more inclement weather such as snow and frost than any other part of Ireland,” Cllr Coyle told Monday’s council meeting.
“I know at the minute the gritting programme is at capacity, the only solution to this is more money, taking into consideration the equipment, grit and personnel needed. There has to be increases for us to get extra roads on our programme.”
Cllr Coyle highlighted three untreated routes in his area of Letterkenny which are very busy, such as the Convoy Road to Glenmaquin and Mongorry, which had to be closed for a period during the last cold snap, the Galdonagh road and Cullion road.
He said the councillors are “only wasting our time” looking to add roads to the winter maintenance programme unless there is more money allocated from the department.
Cllr Coyle’s motion was passed and a letter is now due to be issued to Fianna Fáil’s Darragh O’Brien who was named Transport Minister in the new Government last week.
Donegal County Council has one of the most extensive winter maintenance programmes in the country Approximately 1,140km of road divided into 21 separate routes are gritted as part of our winter
maintenance programme. This equates to approximately 18% of the total length of public road in the county.
125km of new routes were added to the programme in 2021.
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