I have been contacted by residents regarding ice and snow on local roads. I am following up on specific issues with local council staff. In the meantime the below is a general update provided by Dublin City Council.
“As you aware we had an exceptionally cold spell of weather over the recent Christmas/New Year holiday period. Our road gritting plan for this type of weather was in place to deal with this eventuality.
The priority for maintaining roads passable is National Primary routes, secondary routes, bus routes and specific connecting routes eg. North Circular/South Circular Roads. The demand on our resources as a result of the current extended cold period has meant that the Council has been unable to carry out gritting operations in some areas where it has been possible in previous years, such as bus routes in housing estates.
Roads were gritted each morning commencing at 3.30am, including Christmas Day. There were up to seven crews mobilised on each occasion. The Council was in daily contact with Met Eireann and the lowest recorded route surface temperature was -4.9 degrees centigrade (on New Years Day) .
Our normal stockpile of salt is 1300 Tonnes. This would normally be adequate for a full winter, e.g. 850 tonnes in total was used over the winter period 2008/2009.
Over the current Christmas period 970 tonnes have been spread on the above stated routes. While stocks are depleted the Council expects to receive partial replenishment deliveries this week and every effort is being made to source further supplies to enable the City Council to maintain the current level of service.”