A Sligo county councillor has denied that there was a conflict of interest when he proposed controversial road improvement measures at a notorious junction without revealing that he had sold some of the land to the local authority.
Fianna Fáil county councillor Jerry Lundy was paid €10,000 by Sligo County Council for 0.15 hectares of land at Rhue, Tubbercurry.
The land is close to a crossroads where a 13-year-old girl and a 41-year-old mother were killed last year.
Local residents want the county council to make safety measures at Rhue crossroads where the pair died its priority.
They are also angry at a decision to close two nearby exits from the N17 first in order to construct a new junction.
They maintain that the new junction will increase the volume of traffic in Rhue, and that this could lead to a worsening of the situation.
Mr Lundy, who insists that work on the N17 will improve road safety, said there was no conflict when he proposed the measure at the September meeting of the council.
"The county council had bought the land three months earlier so it was not my property when I proposed the motion and there is, therefore, no conflict of interest," he said.
Having himself been involved in an accident at Rhue he was well aware of people's fears.
He said he believed the course of action pursued by the council was the right one.
Efforts to have Mr Lundy's motion rescinded at a special meeting of the council this week failed following legal advice that the move would be unlawful.
During a heated two-hour debate which was watched by some local residents, Fine Gael councillor Michael Fleming, while not naming Mr Lundy, said that many people believed there had been a conflict of interest in the case .
The meeting was called following pressure from residents who have insisted at two packed public meetings that the council has not taken their wishes into account. They wanted work on the N17 deferred.
Another motion by Mr Lundy urging that safety work be carried out at Rhue cross immediately was passed unanimously .
Sligo county manager Hubert Kearns has insisted that the Rhue junction would not be made more dangerous by the creation of a new exit from the N17 because the traffic would be required to approach the cross at a much slower speed.
He said that if the September motion had been rescinded it would lead to the "manifestly dangerous" situation where there were three exits from the N17, could leave the council open to liability and to ridicule.
Officials said that sight lines at Rhue would be improved in the coming weeks, while funding could be provided next year for new safety measures.
On the evening of March 16th, 2004, local woman Ursula Kearns (41) was driving her teenage daughter and Joanne Henry (13) to their first disco when they collided with another car at Rhue crossroads.
Ms Kearns and Joanne died at the scene, and the driver of the other car is currently serving a 12-month sentence in relation to the accident.