Clonmel bypass route
Deputy Mattie McGrath objects to using the existing Clonmel bypass as part of the N24 route and says an outer ring road is needed. The Taoiseach says he will ask the Minister to respond directly and raises the broader issue of bypasses of bypasses.
We have a route option selection process going on for the new N24. I am talking specifically about the Cahir to Waterford stretch, or Cahir to Carrick-on-Suir in our case in Tipperary. Clonmel has a bypass for 20-odd years and it is like a car park morning and evening. It is proposed now to use that same bypass to link up with the new road. This is totally impractical. Clonmel town needs an outer ring road to take the traffic out of the town. It beggars belief that after all the planning, designing, land sterilisation and the planning permission being held up, we are back now looking at using the Clonmel bypass. They cannot widen it because there is nothing to widen. I am talking about from the Cahir Road roundabout to Moangarriff Road roundabout on the southern side and they need a proper outer relief road to relieve that bypass that is already chock-a-block with workers going to work, with housing, schools and everything. It is a car park from 7 until 10 in the morning and then the same in the evening. It is busy all the time as well. We need that rethought and we need to go back to the drawing board. They had sterilised the land for this road but now they are decided they are not doing it.
Comment on this
I am very familiar with the town of Clonmel as the Deputy knows. I am not familiar with the particular roads project so I will have to ask the Minister, Deputy Ryan, to come back to him directly on that. We have an issue around the country which we have to have a think about. There are a whole load of towns that have a bypass that are now seeking a bypass of the bypass. We have to ask ourselves if we are getting it wrong in terms of road planning that the bypass was not the right one in the first place or whether there is too much car-based development and the bypass of the bypass in time will need another bypass, which is not good planning.