Donegal County Council is set to write to the Department of Transport and Transport Infrastructure Ireland seeking more funding to buy more gritting lorries.
The request comes on the back of a motion raised by Cllr Martin Farren this week, who said the winter maintenance programme currently doesn’t go far enough.
“I feel more kilometres in our country need to be gritted and to do that we need extra funding,” Cllr Farren said.
Cllr Farren said the call for ‘more lorries and more men’ needs to be made sooner rather than later.
He cited two routes in his own area of Moville that were particularly affected during the recent cold snaps.
He said he had numerous calls about the routes from the crossroads in Greencastle down to the bottom of Shroove, which is on the Wild Atlantic Way, and from Ballinacrae chapel out to the Glen.
“If an ambulance, a fire engine or emergency services at all had to get out there they would have great difficulty,” Cllr McMahon said.
“There was also difficulty with school buses getting to children.
“Thankfully there was nobody seriously injured and no fatalities but I would be fearful that something like that could happen.”
In Donegal, approximately 1,140kms of public roads are gritted with 21 designated gritting routes across the county. The winter gritting programme covers approximately 18% of the total length of public road in Donegal.