A Kerry councillor has lamented the lack of funding for footpaths in the county, arguing budgets would need to be ‘10 times’ more to make any impact.

Councillor Johnny Healy-Rae said footpath extensions that used to be routine a decade ago have become impossible.

An annual allocation of €400,000 from the Department of Transport is ring-fenced for footpath maintenance in the county.

This funding is further supplemented by Kerry County Council’s own resources.

The council, however, warned at a recent public meeting that funding for footpaths was ‘extremely limited’ this year.

“The €400,000 would do one repair in each town or village in the county,” Cllr Healy-Rae told The Kerrryman.

“It’d have to be four million a year to make any kind of an impact and that’s not being unfair…if you spread that out between all the municipal districts, they’d probably get one stretch of new footpath.”

Cllr Healy-Rae said even 15 years ago, following the financial crisis, each town in Kerry received a new stretch of footpath on an annual basis.

“It might only be 50 metres long of a new footpath, or they extended it from the town out or whatever. That’s not happening now,” he said.

“It was very good value for what they were doing. They [the council] were doing the work themselves, they were doing it when it was quiet, it kept their own men on board…it was a good system.

“That has not happened in a very long time and there’s no budget for it to happen.”

Cllr Healy-Rae cites the example of residents at Killowen, just outside Kenmare, who have been calling for an extension to their footpath for years.

Though a pavement does run through the majority of the area, there is still a number of houses on the edge of the townland that are not connected.

“We’re on about carbon footprint etc…these people can’t let their young people walk to the football field which only 500 yards away,” said Cllr Healy-Rae

“They’ve to sit them into a car and drive them because – I wouldn’t walk on it like – it’s not safe to walk on.

“€100,000 would probably solve that problem and serve maybe about 40 houses…but we’re never going to get it because the €400,000 is basically doing immediate repairs in certain locations.”

Cllr Healy-Rae highlights the active travel schemes in Killarney where money is being spent where there are already footpaths.

The Rock Road cycle lane scheme has costed €941,196, over twice the annual footpath maintenance allocation from the Department of Transport.

“In a lot of the cases where we’re putting in active travel, we already had a footpath. There doesn’t seem to be any research done,” said Cllr Healy-Rae.

He said there was a survey done on Rock Road for 48 hours and only 12 bicycles used it in 48 hours.

“Four of them was the same fella…and he’s cycling in and out there for the last 20 years,” said Cllr Healy-Rae.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme