Deputy Brian O’Shea who, has been constantly calling for major central exchequer funds to be provided to upgrade and protect the Waterford to Tramore Road from flooding, spoke out again this week about the ‘unacceptable situation’ pointing out that the Dail was first informed of the need to deal with flooding on the road almost fifty years ago!
The Tramore based Labour Party Chairman said that, in 1960, the then Minister for Local Government, Neil Blaney, was challenged on the matter by two Waterford TDs, Deputy Tom Kyne of Labour and Deputy Thady Lynch of Fine Gael, who warned that, with the ending of the Tramore rail service, the road would further deteriorate under the growing strain of traffic to and from Tramore. They also told the Minister the road ran through a large tract of bogland and would be flooded whenever high tides and heavy rain coincided.
At the time, said Deputy O’Shea, a similar stretch of roadway that was being flooded from a bog on the main Tipperary-Limerick Road was dealt with satisfactorily through a one-hundred per cent grant of £54,000 from the government to North Tipperary County Council.
“It was estimated then that £100,000 would have fixed the Tramore Road but no such grant materialised we are still waiting and dealing with flooding almost fifty years later”, said Deputy O’Shea.
“Both Tom Kyne and Thady Lynch addressed the matter in the Dail chamber on November 30th., 1960, and both also pleaded that the railway service be left in place with Thady Lynch pointing out that it was a short-sighted move to discontinue the service on the basis that it was losing £3,000 a year”, said Deputy O’Shea who added: “Imagine the brisk business the railway would be doing today if it was in existence.”
