A MOURNES
councillor has said he
was “astounded” to
discover that bin
collections in his DEA
did not take place on
Monday.
Henry Reilly (DUP) was
speaking at that evening’s
monthly meeting of council,
at which he raised the
matter.
“I was astounded today,
whenever I got a message
about the bin collection
service being abandoned
because of snow and ice,
whenever in the Mournes
area we were completely free
of snow and ice,” he stated.
“People just can’t
understand it.
“I was sent a video today of
a bin collection lorry in
Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine,
and the binmen were out in a
foot of snow and there were
Russian rockets landing in
the area, and they kept
emptying their bins.
“I am at a loss to
understand how a wee bit of
snow or ice somewhere else
in the council stops it in the
Mournes area – it is just
incredible.
“If it wasn’t bad enough,
we are making a fool out of
ourselves.
“We are making ourselves
look foolish.”
In reply, Sustainability and
Environment director
Andrew Cassells said that
“any decision to withdraw
services isn’t taken lightly,
and is taken after due
consideration of, obviously,
the weather conditions”.
“The fact is that there was
an ice warning in place until
10 o’clock this morning, from
five o’clock this morning,” he
added.
“Those decisions aren’t
taken lightly, but it is for the
health and safety of the
employees, as well as the
risk that large vehicles
travelling on small rural
roads can have and their
interaction with the public.
“I would suggest that, if we
had similar conditions again,
we will take the same
decision, but each time it
happens we go through a
process to do a dynamic risk
assessment before we make
any decision.”
Cllr Reilly responded: “If
there is snow in south
Armagh, I can understand
you closing the service down
in south Armagh.
“But, if the Mournes area
is completely clear of ice and
snow, why not get the crews
to concentrate on that area,
especially when there is
already a catch-up to be
done, deferred from the New
Year period.
“I am just at a loss to
understand how the council
can make such an
overbearing decision on the
whole area, whenever there
were large areas of the
council that were ice-free.”
