IS it a horse and cart? Is it a silage wagon? Is it a hay baler? No, it’s Adam Teskey on his shiny 1950s combine harvester.
The Fine Gael councillor was in flying form at this month’s Adare-Rathkeale shindig, spreading his muck in the direction of the Council’s Active Travel team.
Brazen out, aiming his pitchfork at Fianna Fáil councillor Bridie Collins for her lack of a John Deere to call her own, Teskey set forth regarding safety measures for pedestrians and cyclists on County Limerick roads: “I see you rolling your eyes, Bridie, but I’m stating a fact, you don’t drive a tractor, but it’s a hazard.”
The Council’s active travel schemes, Teskey reckons, are a huge danger to tractors and heavy goods vehicles thundering along the N69. Poor craturs having to consider families out for a brisk walk and the odd Lycra-clad cyclist as they chomp into their Yorkie bars at breakneck speed.
It’s enough to have County Limerick TD Richard O’Donoghue planning his next blockade.
A man built for speed Teskey might well and truly be, but he was clearly running low on the green diesel with his ire that the roads are narrow enough in the county that tractors are “hopping off the kerbs”, not to mention pesky cyclists and their notions of a bit of space.
“There seems to be more consideration given for the cyclist and the pedestrian than what’s given to the motorist along these schemes. I would now like to see logic prevail in how we go forward,” Cllr Teskey neighed.
Independent Ireland councillor, John O’Donoghue, brother to Ireland’s chief road closer, was also bleating about the lack of consideration given to trucks.
“They are barely making some of the junctions as it is, so listen, ye’re not building for the donkey and cart anymore,” he told the Council executive.
Farming, they say, looks real easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the cabbage patch. However, some councillors feel that if local authority staff can’t drive a tractor or a HGV, they have no business designing active travel schemes.
“Do any of ye in there drive an agricultural tractor, an articulated commercial lorry, or any heavy goods vehicles? Myself and Cllr O’Donoghue would be out there and if you go out to Kilcornan, you are hopping off the kerbs and damaging your tyres, which are very expensive at the moment,” Teskey snorted.
At least we now know where to find the best fertiliser.
– Local Democracy Reporting Scheme