‘Take the money off Ennis councillors they don’t seem to be able to use it for Active Travel’ – Cllr Hayes

*Cllr Pat Hayes (FF). Photograph: Tom Micks

A LONG-SERVING East Clare councillor has said his Ennis counterparts “don’t seem to be able to use” funds allocated for Active Travel and it should be stripped off them.

Revised designs for the Active Travel scheme on the Tulla Rd in Ennis were backed by Ennis MD councillors in April where they were informed the summer was the envisaged start of constructing the project.

€1.8m in funding for the project was granted over two years ago in February 2023 with an additional €1.5m received this January but it is likely to cost close to €5m.

Also funded under Active Travel is the controversial Ennis local transport plan which received €100,000 in January.

Of Clare’s €3.3m Active Travel in January from the National Transport Authority (NTA, €450,000 went to staff costs for Clare County Council’s Active Travel office with €500,000 for the bus stop enhancement programme. €100,000 went to a project for Ardnacrusha to Athlunkard Bridge and another €100,000 for Clonmoney National School in Newmarket-on-Fergus.

Six of the other successful projects were located in Ennis. They included the Limerick Road (incl. St. Flannans Drive) Active Travel Scheme, Ennis (€150,000), Holy Family National School Ennis (€180,000), Gaelscoil Ennis (€100,000), Ennis National School (€130,000) and Ennis Town Enhancement (€100,000).

Voicing his frustration was Cllr Pat Hayes (FF) who noted Ennis was “particularly” dominating in the allocation of Active Travel funding. “Other areas have been looking to expand to it. The lack of use for Active Travel in areas other than Ennis is frustrating. If we can’t get to the level of spending it here in Ennis, we need to find a format to have Active Travel brought back out to the Municipal Districts.

“There’s less money and money not being spent at all when other projects have not get funding. We need to take a far bigger view. Active Travel was spent in all parts of Limerick but we haven’t that here. We need a redeployment of the funding, it is not being spent in Ennis, spend it in the other Municipal Districts”.

His views were supported by Cllr Michael Begley (IND), “that needs to be looked at and how it is distributed”.

Raising the matter again at the Killaloe Municipal District, Cllr Hayes stated, “€500,000 was spent on the design for the Tulla Rd and nothing has been done, we got good value for money for different projects, if we got €5,000 here we’d be able to solve a lot of issues”.

Hayes added, “I suggested we take money off the Ennis councillors, they don’t seem to be able to use it, give it to the Municipal District”.