Councillor fury at absence of Corofin footpath

A PRIVATE developer would not “have got away with what the council did in Corofin,” a local councillor has claimed.

Councillor Joe Arkins made the comment after it emerged that a council estate on the outskirts of Corofin is unlikely to be connected to the village by a footpath in the near future.
At the recent North Clare Electoral Area meeting, Councillor Michael Kelly called on the council “in the interests of health and safety” to link the footpaths at the council estate at Cragbrien to Corofin.
Senior executive engineer, Stephen Lahiffe, responded to the motion tabled by Councillor Kelly saying that the council “has no objection to the construction of a public footpath” at this location. However, the response added, “The land required is part of a private housing estate and Clare County Council has no funding for land purchase in the discretionary maintenance programme”.
Councillor Kelly asserted that there is “a very bad blind bend” on the stretch of road and residents of the estate are being forced to walk on the public road because the footpath at the estate did not connect with the footpath in Corofin.
“I think health and safety has to take precedence. It is our own estate and it is unconnected to the town,” the Tubber councillor said.
“No private developer would have got away with what the council did in Corofin,” Ruan Councillor Joe Arkins commented. “They would have had to buy that piece of land,” he added.
Councillor Arkins asked Mr Lahiffe what the cost involved might be.
“Over the last two years, there has been no funding for footpaths. There has been no money for the provision of public footpaths. This is the first year we will have money for footpaths,” Mr Lahiffe pointed out.
“If we were able to get the land and we have money for it, then we would do it [link the footpath at Cragbrien to the one in Corofin],” he added.
Councillor Kelly stressed that something must be done about the footpath adding that “we can’t have a two-tier system where we have one set of rules for us and one for the developer”.
“If a child gets killed, we would rush to do it and get it done then but prevention is, in my opinion, the better method,” he concluded.