Canal incident gets council to act

TWO children who recently strayed perilously close to an unprotected drop into the Park Canal had a narrow escape. The particular spot on the canal is at Troy’s Lock and is unprotected by a wall or fencing of any kind, despite a drop of at least 25 feet into the canal water. “Worse still, especially in the case of children, there is no way of getting out of the canal water, there are no steps or a slipway,” Cllr Kieran O’Hanlon, told the Limerick Post. He wants City Hall to install protective measures against a serious accident occurring at Troy’s Lock.

“I’ve spelled out the danger on a number of times. The canal is the responsibility of Waterways Ireland and perhaps the Board of Works, but as the local authority, City Council also has a role to play in making the place safe, especially in an area where there are so many young families living close to such an obvious danger to safety.

“Many parents are in an absolute panic and but for the grace of God, there could have been a devastating outcome for those little children”.

The incident, did, however, act as a catalyst and it has been confirmed that fencing is being erected around the dangerous drop.

“This will come as a great relief to the parents and people of Abbeylock and Abbeyvale, and I’m very glad that City Hall’s director of services, Pat Dromey, has acted quickly on this”.

It has also emerged that a number of empty houses in the vicinity of the now demolished old Guinness building, will shortly be acquired by the council.

“This comes as a great relief as the empty houses had been attracting a lot of very undesirable activity by people drinking and doing drugs and getting up to all kinds of unacceptable behaviour which was really putting people off enjoying the canal. It was also, needless to say, making people scared of walking on it,” concluded the councillor:PIC AVAILABLE TO GO WITH THIS