Questions about maintenance of new Clara cemetery

A query to the council asking who is responsible for the maintenance of the new lawn cemetery in Clara was posed by Cllr Frank Moran at a recent council meeting.

Speaking at a meeting of Tullamore Municipal District, the Fianna Fáil councillor commented: “The signage has gone up for the lawn cemetery and the criteria for the lawn cemetery and all that, which people are adhering to to the best of their ability.

“The Environment section (of the council) were here the last time and they assured me that they had sent out tender for the cemetery to be cleaned up, but the maintenance of the actual cemetery I believe falls with Offaly County Council pertaining to it becoming a lawn cemetery, because we in Clara don’t have a scheme that looks after the cemetery itself so I want to know who looks after it?”

“If the environment section is responsible for the maintaining of the cemetery then they should maintain it going forward," he continued in relation to the facility in Kilcoursey.

Cllr Moran also highlighted his concerns in relation to dumping in Tullamore and said that the local Tidy Towns groups are “looking for answers.” He added that Tullamore Tidy Towns had contacted him about dumping in the area.

He asked what was the position with regard to CCTV prosecution and if it involved GDPR (regulation on information privacy.) “The people from these organisations are looking for answers.”

Director of Services for Tullamore Municipal District, Tom Shanahan, said that the CCTV would be effective in preventing the dumping where the cameras are located but said “it moves on somewhere else. It's still a big issue".

"Obviously we are endeavouring to get people prosecuted, prosecutions are probably the most effective deterrent,” added Mr Shanahan.

The Director of Services continued: “As regards Kilcoursey and the lawn cemetery, I don't think it was envisioned because something's designated as a lawn cemetery that the main regime will necessarily change. If a community or group (was) maintaining it before it became a lawn cemetery, then we would expect that would continue. The hope is that the lawn cemetery will be a lot easier to maintain.

Cllr Moran remarked: “Am I going to have to be ringing every month asking the council when the grass grows up to say 'okay, the grass has grown up again, are ye going to send down somebody?'

He asked if the council was responsible for having a contractor for the lawn cemetery.

The local councillor stated: “You can't be expecting the Tidy Towns to be getting volunteers to go up to the cemetery, there's plenty of other work that they could be doing around the town.”

He said that he wasn't just being asked about the cemetery by one or two people but by “a lot of people who congregate within the cemetery at different times”.

Cathaoirleach Cllr Declan Harvey suggested contacting Mucklagh lawn cemetery to find out how they manage their facility.