This article is from page 6 of the 2008-05-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
THOUSANDS of homes and doz- ens of commercial properties over a wide area east of Ennis have been left without adequate emergency fire and ambulance cover following the closure of the Tulla Road for works being undertaken by the local au- thority and Iarnrod Eireann.
Clare County Council is carrying out work on the sewer infrastructure in the area of the railway bridge at Corrovorrin while Iarnr6d Eireann is undertaking a major upgrade of the railway bridge in advance of the opening of the Western Rail Corri- dor.
Fine Gael Councillor and former Limerick fire chief Johnny Flynn has said while the works are worthy and essential, the planning had not been well thought out. He made a lengthy submission to the council regarding the works and highlighted safety 1s- sues and the need for consideration to be given to emergency fire and am- bulance cover for that part of town.
“Public safety has to be the number one priority here. I had suggested that a fire appliance and ambulance be based on the eastern side of the bridge at Corrovorrin so they could quickly respond to emergencies in that part of town. I put this in my submission and didn’t even receive a
reply,” he said.
On Saturday afternoon, the emer- gency services were sent to a road traffic accident at Ballymacahill. The fire brigade had to take a seven kilometre detour by the Quin Road and Gauras while an ambulance had to take a similarly long detour out the Galway road. These diversions added between seven and 10 minutes to the response times. Fortunately, the accident was not serious and the emergency crews were not required.
“If that had been an incident where a car was on fire with persons trapped, whatever chance we would have had of saving them was gone out the win- dow with the detour we had to take. This is a tragedy waiting to happen and I can understand why people are not happy about it,” an emergency worker said.
According to Cllr Flynn, “There was no need for the road to be closed on Saturday. There was no work going on there and some provision should have been made for the emer- gency services to gain access.”
A council spokesman said _ the Irish Rail work involves replacing the bridge deck and widening it and this could not be carried out while maintaining traffic flow. The time it would take for a fire appliance or ambulance to get through would be longer than the round trip.”