This article is from page 19 of the 2012-02-14 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 19 JPG
PPS NUMBERS may soon appear on Clare gravestones instead of names if the current approach to naming roads and other public areas continue, according to one Clare County Councillor.
A plan to encourage community groups to put up their own local name signs was last night accepted by Clare County Council after a number of councillora criticised the roll-out of road numbers which they claim “depersonalise” local communities.
According to Cllr PJ Kelly (FF), the current ethos will see PPS numbers being used instead of names on gravestones in the near future.
“If this continues, we will have a time when we forfeit our own names and just go with our PPS numbers. In times to come, we will have tombstones that read ‘here lies 07235762’,” said Cllr Kelly. “And God help a man who is lost in the middle of the night and can’t find a turn-off for Crusheen or Ballinruan and he doesn’t have a computer with him to tell where the L367865 road leads to.”
Cllr Kelly also described as “discrimination” the process which sees some villages granted signs while others are not.
“I would not have my village discriminated against just because it is on a national primary or secondary road – that is discrimination against villages and I don’t think that this council should be party to this kind of discrimination,” continued Cllr Kelly.
“I sincerely hope that we join together to bring back the culture of our county and our villages.”
Speaking on the motion, Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) said that road numbers were necessary to help emergency services to locate fires and other incidents quickly.
“I fundamentally disagree with this motion and the way it is being talked about here today. There is a stark need for an all-Ireland approach to this issue,” he said.
“I know that there is a certain amount of impersonality involved with these road numbers but if someone is sitting in a centralised emergency dispatch service – maybe down in Cork – these local names mean nothing.
“I don’t care what you want to stick on stones on the corner of the road in a village, but what has to happen is that these numbers need to exist and every house should be digitally identifiable.”