A DANGEROUS sinkhole, which first appeared in Allihies almost six and half years ago, is no longer secure because the palisade fencing around it is rusting, according to councillors.
Several members of the West Cork Municipal District were highly critical of the Office of Public Works (OPW) for failing to take any action to cover, or make safe the massive sinkhole and reopen the road to the public.
Cllr George Gill (FF) said that when the crater, which is 20 to 30m in diameter, first appeared on the roadway at Ballydonegan Upper on October 18th 2019 after a mine shaft collapsed it was immediately fenced-off because there were fears of further collapses.
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‘Nothing has been done since then’, said Cllr Gill, whose fears were confirmed when executive engineer, Kevin Lynch, said a letter sent to the minister for transport on July 21st 2025 didn’t even elicit a response.
That level of indifference was evident at the February 2020 municipal district meeting when councillors complained that the department of communications, climate action and environment had yet to formally respond to ‘the emergency situation’ in Allihies which was ‘unacceptable’.
Cllr Finbarr Harrington (Ind) echoed those remarks at their recent meeting saying: ‘The department’s failure to reply to the local authority is disrespectful. The fact that they haven’t responded tells its own story.’
Cllr Danny Collins (Ind Ire) said: ‘If this happened in Dublin it would have been sorted by now.’
Cllr Daniel Sexton (Ind Ire) suggested: ‘We need to contact Kevin Boxer Moran, the minister of state at the department of public expenditure, because he has responsibility for the OPW and demand that the sinkhole be covered, and the cul-de-sac re-opened.’
Cllr Harrington pointed out that the mine shafts are the responsibility of the OPW. He said: ‘They are obliged to make it safe.’
He also called for the drive-through road to be reinstated because farmers and householders are having to travel miles out of their way to access their land and homes.
No one knows exactly how deep the hole is, but some engineers speculated that it could be anything between 100m and 300m.
Cllr Harrington claimed that leaving it the way it is has devalued property in the area. ‘We need to put pressure on the OPW to cover this hole because it is dangerous and driving around it is just not good enough,’ he added.
