Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Minister that the growth needs to be regionally balanced. He signed off on the Limerick northern distributor road project at the start of this year. It is making huge headway, as the Chairman can attest to. It straddles both of our constituencies. It is a shining light in what has been a few dull months nationally and in the mid-west. It is a major infrastructural project under way in a part of counties Clare and Limerick where thousands of people are seeing this progress daily. It starts in Coonagh and ends in Knockalisheen, which is in my home parish of Meelick. The cartoon "Road Runner", in which Road Runner is chased out of town by Wile E. Coyote on a road that is going nowhere and so the only choice is to drop off the edge, comes to mind in that as things stand we are at risk of the Limerick northern distributor becoming such a road because when it reaches Knockalisheen there will be a roundabout and that is it. There is a phase 2. As the Chairman will know, I have had issues with the routing of phase 2. I am still not happy with it. Many of the communities are also not happy with it. Those living along the route are being almost held to ransom, knowing that a road is coming but wondering when will it happen. People further out cannot wait for this to happen. We need certainty in regard to phase 2. It cannot be left in limbo forever. Phase 1 is being built and will be completed. For better or worse, phase 2 needs to happen, offering the full suite of connectivity from Coonagh to Knockalisheen, Parteen, Clonlara and out to the Dublin Road in Limerick. Those attending Limerick Institute of Technology, LIT, and people from the suburbs of north Limerick city and Clare face daily traffic congestion. There have many local squabbles regarding whether the road should be extended 100 m here or there. We got entrenched in that but communities and the people of counties Clare and Limerick want certainty about phase 2. We hope it will be included in the NDP to be announced next Monday. I ask the Minister to comment on how he sees phase 2 developing.