An analogy between Lanigan’s Ball and the botched, “resurfaced” section of the Waterford to Tramore road has been made by Tramore Town Councillor Joe Conway, who described the stretch in question as “a turgid track of terror”.
“What we have had since September last, when the so-called repair job was done, can only be termed a fiasco”, the councillor commented at the Council’s April meeting.
He suggested that it must be the only road in the developed world where motorists routinely choose to drive on the hard shoulder, because the surface was better there. “That is of course when they can make it to the hard shoulder”, he remarked, “as the cones are in, they are out, then back in again – in a sort of dance-macabre that is a highway version of Lanigan’s Ball”.
“I wouldn’t mind”, he said, “but the road was fine until they went at it”.
Referring to similar road work failures at Fenor, Bellake and on the route from Tramore to the airport, he said users were left discomfited, annoyed and endangered – not to mention the expense involved.
He said thousands of people had singed a petition which he intended forwarding to the County Council’s Director of Transport and Infrastructure Services the morning after the meeting.
“I hope it will underscore for him and his team the feelings of deep scepticism of the public here in the east of the county about the capability of his people to give us a basic level of road provision that meets the criteria of safety and comfort”, he said.
He added that he awaited more in trepidation than confidence, to see what was done by way of repair. And he warned that the people would not be forbearing of “another shambles”.
Other councillors, including Ann Marie Power and Blaise Hannigan, spoke on the subject also, the former successfully seeking an assurance from Assistant Area Engineer Paul Sweeney that the road would be put right in time for the June Bank Holiday Weekend (warm weather being an essential prerequisite for the work to be carried out).
