An excessive amount of rainfall from adjacent lands has been attributed with causing damage to the Boola Road in Meelick.

As he sought an upgrade to the South Clare road, Cllr John Crowe (FG) flagged that it was “very bad with potholes and gully and drains blocked up and is hazardous to traffic and pedestrians”.

Senior executive engineer, Tom Mellett noted that the road had been upgraded in recent years but “suffered damage due to excessive levels of rainfall coming from adjacent lands. Maintenance works have been carried out in the past week and this will continue as the need arises”.

Speaking at the January meeting of the Shannon Municipal District, Cllr Crowe claimed that every single councillor in the Shannon and Killaloe Mds had been contacted about the Boola Rd. He praised the recent work but highlighted that illegal dumping was proving problematic along the route.

Crowe outlined, “There is a lot of dumping going on at this particular road, there was a massive amount of rubbish dumped at the very end of the road, it is a very quite road with not that too many residents, a car skipped off the road and went into one of the dykes recently and had to be pulled out”.

Surfacing would be prolonged if drainage work was carried out to keep water off the road, Cllr PJ Ryan (IND) believed. “It is virtually impossible to keep the water off the road as it is”.

Having met a resident at the road during one wet evening, Cllr Pat O’Gorman shared the concerns of Cllr Crowe. “There are drains on the road but they seem to be in the wrong place. Gullies are going in the ditch but they are not catching any of the water. I’d say it wouldn’t take a whole pile of money to connect the drains”.

Support for the motion was also voiced by Cllr Michael Begley (IND) who agreed that drainage issues needed to be rectified. He quipped, “I naively thought I was the only councillor dealing with this road, the increase in councillor traffic may not be helping the road”.