John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

Since mid-December all local authorities were engaged in an extensive campaign of road gritting, using a combination of sand and salt to melt the ice and snow in response to severe weather warnings issued by Met Éireann. One of the criticisms heard during the period related to the extent of the road gritting exercise. One could find fault with the extent of gritting but the ongoing availability of rock salt dictated that treatment was restricted to national roads. The extent of the extremely low temperature resulted in rapid depletion of supplies of rock salt maintained by local authorities. Coupled with the widespread extent of the severe weather throughout much of Europe, local authorities and the National Roads Authority experienced difficulties in sourcing sufficient new supplies to keep adequate salt for spreading on roads. The position regarding salt was much more severe in other European countries.

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