MOTORISTS were again allowed to fill up their tanks with petrol and diesel in West Donegal this afternoon after some garages had been forced to introduce rationing.
Garages in West Donegal, especially in Gweedore and Gortahork, had been forced to limit customers to just €20 of fuel each.
Many garages had run very low on fuel after treacherous roads prevented delivery trucks from Derry from making the journey.
Eugene Gallagher from Gallagher’s Filling Station in Derrybeg had been hoping a tanker would arrive last Friday or Saturday and was forced to ration fuel until a delivery lorry arrived yesterday morning.
“We were getting very low and we had to ration fuel. They were supposed to come out on Friday and Saturday but couldn’t make it because of the roads.
“They eventually arrived earlier today but it took them five hours coming from Derry which would normally take them little more than an hour and a half,” he said.
Another local garage owner Jimmy Sharkey from the Top Filling Station in Dungloe refused to ration his petrol saying he would rather run out than do that to his customers.
“We were running very low but I just didn’t want to ration petrol when people took the time to come out and give us the business.
“Thankfully the lads from Top Oil managed to get from Derry this afternoon and fill us up again,” he said.
However Mr Sharkey warned that petrol and diesel could reach a record high for two years in the coming weeks.
“The problem is that the Government are putting so many taxes on fuel that we are being forced to pass it onto the customer.
“We don’t want to be doing this but we have been left with no choice,” he said.
Fine Gael Deputy Dinny McGinley warned that more rationing is inevitable if the roads in West Donegal and the rest of the county are not treated properly.
“We have been warning about this for the last number of days and now rationing has already hit. Thankfully the tankers managed to get here.
“But the bottom line is that this should never have been allowed to happen if the roads of Donegal were treated with salt as they have been in many other parts of the country.
“We need to take a drastic look at this situation and make sure it does not happen again. The winter is far from over,” he warned.
Meanwhile Donegal County Council is due to receive a large supply of salt tomorrow (WED) or Thursday as a new shipment comes in from Tunisia.
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