Tony McCormack (Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I thank the witnesses for coming in and for their opening statements. Deputy Clendennen and I are from the constituency of Offaly. I will not say that Deputy Clendennen has jumped the gun, but he has jumped in before me on a couple of different issues. I will try to be as quick as possible.

I cannot leave the N52 and the N80 alone. The N52 link road is important. I know we are being parochial and are not looking at it nationally, but for us it is way over capacity. There is one particular junction, I am not sure whether the witnesses are aware of it, namely, the high road junction at Durrow. I think works will be carried out there soon. It will sort out the issue, but it will help in some way, shape or form, to slow down the traffic. It may make it a little bit safer, but it will not sort it out completely. It is still a dangerous road that is over capacity. At times, there is probably something in region of approximately 19,000 vehicles travelling on it per day, which, as I said, is over capacity. It is growing at a rate of approximately 5% per year. The people using that road to take their kids to school are taking their lives and their children's lives into their own hands every day as they traverse that junction. People who are going to daily mass still have to use it. People also use it to go to the crèche beside the school. The local people use it to get back into Tullamore to head to Dublin to go about their daily business, be it work or whatever. We need this road. It is also an issue. IDA Ireland has told the Tullamore Chamber of Commerce that this road is required for us to attract more foreign direct investment into the area.

The Durrow High Cross Committee wants to set up an interpretative centre to show the fantastic monastic site of St. Colmcille's Well, some of the ruins of the old college and Durrow Abbey. The committee cannot build that interpretive centre until we get that new road because there is too much traffic there at the moment. We need it. For a second time, we are at the actual route selection stage. We have chosen a route, or rather, a route has been chosen through the consultation. The last time it went to design stage and was thrown out. For freedom and value for money for the Exchequer, we need to get this road done now. If we started it in the morning from where it is now, it would still be 2032 or 2033 before it was built. God knows what can happen in the meantime with the extra volume of traffic that will be travelling on it.

That brings me to the N80, which was spoken about by Deputy Clendennen. It is a vital link for us between north and south and connects the M5 with the M7. At the moment, if I try to travel from Tullamore to Portlaoise on the N80, it will take 45 or 50 minutes. Years ago, I was able to travel that in 20 minutes. I raise the frustration of road users as well.

There are a lot of accidents on that road. Luckily enough, we have not had that many fatalities but it is only a matter of time because it is getting busier and busier. We need to look at that and it needs to be taken care of sooner rather than later.

The other question I have relates to the rail system and twin tracking the links right across the country, but particularly from Dublin to Galway. Obviously, in the middle of that line is the Tullamore stop. If we are promoting living in towns outside of the Dublin area, we have to provide people with the infrastructure to be able to get to Dublin more easily. While the train service in Tullamore is good, it could be better given the growth in population that we are going to have over the next few years. Furthermore, with the advent of hybrid working and working from home, there are more opportunities for people to live in towns like Tullamore and other towns around the country that are on the rail lines. We need to have twin tracks so that we can have a higher volume of stock on the system at the same time and shorter travelling times between different areas.

I had some questions on roads on bogs but our guests have answered them and I am quite happy with the answers. I am delighted to see that Offaly County Council is working with them on that because approximately 30% of the roads in our county are on bog. It is very hard to maintain them. The pilot programmes that they have been run with Offaly County Council have been quite successful and I am hoping that they remain successful over the next few years. I hope we can go at it and roll it out across the road network that is on a peat base.