Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I love greenways. I love putting the bikes into the boot of the car, taking off on a Saturday and getting fresh air in my lungs with my wife and kids. I love that. I love travelling by train. Greenways are fine for weekends. They are recreational. They do not get someone to work, school or college. We need roads. We are still in the era where we depend on roads. We cannot have ideological blocks to roads. We also cannot have roads that are half built. This is not the world of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner where roads end in the middle of no place. That is what will happen with the Limerick northern distributor road. We either build roads in their entirety - we either commit to phase 1 and phase 2 fully - or we do not commit to the road at all. We cannot have a road dropping off in the middle of no place with a roundabout. It has been said it will connect to Moyross, and that is true, but let us consider where it comes off in Meelick, less than a mile from my home place. The road will come off at a minor tertiary road and that is where the rat run will be every morning. There is good and bad with every road project in the country. This is decisive for communities, there is no doubts about it, and people cannot be left in a state of limbo because an ideological view that this is not good for the city. I think it has to progress. I have some other points I wish to briefly put-----