New boundary wall for Limerick graveyard

COUNCILLORS will next month be asked to approve a planning application for a new boundary wall at Mount St Oliver graveyard.

The cemetery has been a venue for anti-social behaviour, and horses have also wandered in from nearby estates destroying the area around the graves of loved ones, and troubling mourners.

Now, it’s hoped the wall will help bring this problem to an end.

City East Fianna Fail councillor Catherine Slattery has welcomed the news.

She said: “The wall will run from the entrance to St Enda’s right up to the Willows at the Old Cork Road. The wall will have plaster-finished piers with galvanised railings on top of a plaster-finished wall. It will be four foot high with the railing on top measuring five foot to bring the wall to a total of nine feet tall,” she revealed.

The councillor thanked local residents for supporting the project, and to the council staff for making it happen.

“The people on the Old Cork Road deserve to see this happen at long last,” she said.

Councillors will be asked to green-light the project at next month’s metropolitan meeting.

Labour councillor Elena Secas also asked about the wall at this month’s metropolitan meeting, where Seamus Hanrahan, the director of service in the capital investment directorate confirmed its progression.

Cllr Secas pointed out the boundary wall has been in the pipeline since last year after funding was secured from the general muncipal allocation and development levies.

She was critical of the delay though, pointing out that no planning process is under way.

"I have requested many times that the project is prioritised and that the Council engage especially with the local residents whose properties are facing the cemetery to ensure that they have an input into the design since they will be facing day and night the wall once built," she said.

"Given the incidents at the cemetery at the end of last year, this project should have been prioritised and not delayed, or are the council waiting for more incidents to happen? I urge the council to honour their commitment this time and consult with the locals before the end of this month in order to be able to submit the Part 8 application in June as per their reply to my question", Cllr Secas concluded.