A WEST Cork councillor has queried if his local graveyard will have room for him when he passes away due to the current shortage of graves sites.
Cllr Danny Collins (Ind Ire) raised a motion at a recent meeting of the West Cork Municipal District and called on the local authority to purchase or use council land for new graveyards.
He said there is a serious shortage of graves in Goleen, Schull, Kilcrohane, and Glengarriff, and what is available there will soon run out.
He also queried about land across from Goleen graveyard and that testing had been carried out there before.
‘It’s my old parish and it could be where I am laid to rest and I would like to know if there is a graveyard there for me,’ said Cllr Collins, who asked for a report on graveyards.
Cllr Caroline Cronin (FG) seconded his motion and said people are really worried, especially in Schull and Goleen, about what will happen if there aren’t enough grave sites.
Cllr Finbarr Harrington (Ind) said it’s a ‘massive issue’ for his constituents and asked for a report on all graveyards owned by the local authority.
Cllr Joe Carroll (FF) said this issue has been going on for years and it is indeed a source of worry for a lot of people across West Cork who see ground is running out in a lot of cemeteries.
‘As a Council we need to get a lot more active in purchasing land we have, to have a more serious approach in West Cork to this issue,’ said Cllr Carroll.
Cllr Noel O’Donovan (FG) said it isn’t good enough as they are dealing with peoples’ loved ones, while Cllr Daniel Sexton (Ind Ire) said they need to have respect for those that have passed away and get better at maintaining graveyards.
Assistant staff officer Martina O’Driscoll said that the West Cork Municipal District invited expressions of interests from landowners last year in an attempt at looking to get more land for graveyards. She said they identified plots in Schull and Glengarriff in the confines of the existing graveyards. ‘We continue to look at opportunities, while the Goleen graveyard is in the ownership of the Church, and we have attempted to identify lands there,’ she said.
Cllr Collins also called for the grass to be cut and overgrown vegetation tackled at both Maulinaward and Drimoleague graveyards and asked if this could be done two to three times a year.
‘People are buried here and we must respect them. These two graveyards are very unsightly,’ said Cllr Collins.
Cllr Harrington also supported the motion and said he has been contacted by people with disabilities who cannot access the graveyards because of rough stones on some of the paths.
‘I accept we have a lot of graveyards but maybe we should be setting aside funding from our budget to maintain them, especially the access paths,’ said Cllr Harrington.
Assistant staff officer O’Driscoll said that Community Employment scheme workers previously carried out this type of work but that option was not available this year, but that those graveyards are on a programme to be cut and trimmed.