*Photograph: Joe Buckley
SHANNON ‘always seems to be last’ when it comes to delivery of services from the local authority, a county councillor has claimed.
Frustration on the resources within the Shannon Municipal District and the failure to replace old bins across the town were among the grievances aired at a meeting of the Shannon MD.
Praise for the difference made by the road sweeper in Shannon was voiced by Cllr Donna McGettigan (SF), “it is lovely to see it that at long last the kerbs are looking like kerbs and not jungles”.
She warned that the cushion by the bend approaching the grounds of Shannon Hibs FC in Cluain Airne “needs to be moved. There is going to be an accident and it is a wonder there hasn’t been already”.
An update on Shannon playground and “the removal of all the old bins, have they been replaced” was queried by Cllr Tony Mulcahy (FG). “The preference when we remove a bin that is gone beyond repair that we replace it. Solar bins are being rolled out in Ennis, why are we always last? Every place I go I see were collecting seven or eight times the amount of rubbish, it is more compact with solar, we put three or four in at Drumgeely, maybe one of them would have done the job, are the older bins coming back,” he asked.
Cllr McGettigan replied, “The bins was a motion I put in a while ago, I understand that the leave no trace policy, I hate to say it because it is just not working, I would love to see it working because it is a brilliant policy. This is about trying to get the message out about leave no trace and how people can help their community”.
Cathaoirleach of the Shannon MD, Cllr Pat O’Gorman (FF) stated, “The bins we did put in at Drumgeely they are welcome even though there’s crows and magpies taking the stuff out, these bins would need to be sealed, the rubbish would go in and the crowe or magpie wouldn’t be able to get it back out”.
Responding to the elected members, senior executive engineer, Tom Mellett said of the road sweeper in Shannon, “we’re beginning to see the effect that we’ve been expecting which is great”.
On the concerns in Tradaree and Cluain Airne, he explained, “standards insist they go into the centre of the lanes, we have to put in a continuous white line going up the centre of the road. The measures will see a mitigation, we’ve been carrying out our own checks on it, possibly one in ten cars going through the middle but the cars are slowing down, they are there to slow down traffic and it is having that effect”.
Repairs were carried out to a swing in the central area of the playground in June, he said. “There is a slide to be repaired and we’re waiting on the unit to arrive, we’re having difficulty getting it on site but we expect it to be there”. Staff in the Shannon Leisure Centre carry out visual checks on the equipment on a daily basis, Mellett stated, equipment is replaced and updated as required.
Bins are a common discussion, he acknowledged. “It does come up a bit, Donna had a motion on solar bins, the bins take a lot more material but we don’t have a lot of overflowing bins in the town, we’re looking to reduce the amount of bins, the solar bins are very expensive, the weight of these bins is far excessive, the current set-up for the collecting of bins is one person collecting them so the weight of these is excessive and we’d have to double our crew and look at taking resources from somewhere else. The issue is around physically managing them”.
This prompted Cllr Mulcahy to do further probing who said “they have been on trial in different areas”. Mellett said, “they have different set-ups. We’re talking about 30kg”. Cllr McGettigan questioned if it would take less time with solar bins but Mellett advised the circuit would still be the time along with the transit time involved.
“Compact bins could take ten days to fill, we would only need to do it every ten days,” Cllr McGettigan said. “We are reviewing that, we’re not emptying them every day,” Mellett replied.
