Tipperary town bypass
Deputy McGrath urges funding for a bypass or relief road for Tipperary town in the national development plan review. The Tánaiste says the town needs to be bypassed and that the revised NDP has not yet come to Government.
The Tánaiste will be well aware of the situation in Tipperary town regarding a bypass of the town. I understand the review of the national development plan is under way and is due in the coming days. We dearly need to have funding in there for a relief road for the town - a bypass or else as part of the N24 project. We need to relieve the town.
The Jobs4Tipp and March4Tipp campaigns, along with the County Tipperary Chamber and everybody else, brought 5,000 people onto the streets nearly two years ago. They need to see this. The town is congested. It cannot thrive. The task force is doing great work but we need to relieve the town of the trucks and let the town breathe and live.
Comment on this
As the Deputy will be aware, I have visited Tipperary town on a number of occasions, including as a previous Minister with responsibility for transport. I believe, and the Government agrees, and so does the Minister for Transport, that the town needs to be bypassed. The only way we will regenerate the town is by bypassing it and relieving it from the through traffic it currently experiences. Deputies Cahill and Lowry and Senator Ahearn are of the same view too.
The revised national development plan, NDP, has yet to go to the Government. We will have a discussion about it at the Cabinet sub-committee this afternoon and it will probably go to the Government in early October.