Day trippers could cost city a fortune

The city will be hit with a barrage of personal injury compensation claims unless the surfaces of the pedestrian streets are repaired, it has been claimed.

The warning comes as startling new figures reveal the full cost of injury claims as a result of falls on the city’s cobblestones is nearing €700,000.

Fianna Fáil councillor Peter Keane issued the warning, and called the cobblestone pavement along Shop Street, and the streets off the main thoroughfare, as a “disaster”.

He fears that as the paving continues to deteriorate, pedestrians will continue to get injured after falls and the city will be liable for injury compensations.

A report obtained by Cllr Keane reveals that some 49 personal injury claim cases were taken against the Council between April 2000 and July 2012.

These recorded injuries occurred on cobbles in the vicinity of Shop Street , Mainguard Street, Williamsgate Street, and Abbeygate Street.

The amount of compensation paid by the Council through its insurance company, Irish Public Bodies Mutual Insurances Ltd, is €442,127, the report shows. The direct cost to the City Council in dealing with these cases was €231,267, which includes legal fees of both sides in the disputes.

These costs are for 39 cases, as 10 had not been finalised at the time of the report.

Cllr Keane has called on the Director of Services for Transportation and Infrastructure, Ciaran Hayes, to issue elected members with a full report on how the Council proposes to deal with the problem.

 “The amount of people who are falling on the cobblestones, who are twisting their ankles, women in high heels getting stuck in between the cobbles, the entire job was just a disaster from the beginning, and the number of compensation claims will grow as the cobblestones get worse,” he said.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.