Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and his officials for appearing before us today. I will ask a number of questions. The Minister could jot them down because if I do them one by one, we might not get to the end product.

I will read from an email I got a five minutes ago from a gentleman I do not know. About the road network, he wrote:

My daughter purchased a touring caravan recently and has visited the beautiful west Cork towns of Skibbereen and Bantry. As she cannot tow it, I have the job of towing it. I am sure you are well aware, but some of the roads I travelled on were appalling to say the least. I served 42 years in the Defence Force and saw better roads in war zones while serving overseas. The following are just a few: Crookstown village to Béal na Bláth, Enniskean to Ballineen, Ouvane Falls to Ballylickey, Dunmanway west to Bantry.

He went on, and I will reply to that email. I want the Minister to have a clear understanding that, while I must deal with national issues, I certainly have to deal with local crises. There is a local crisis with funding for roads in west Cork. I accept the Minister for Transport is not dealing with the local improvement scheme, LIS. I recently heard the Minister for Rural and Community Development speaking about the LIS and he said Cork had the third highest level. Cork is the biggest county in Ireland so it should not be third highest in anything. The problem is there is no money filtering in. The Minister spoke about €70 million for local roads. I am worried about regional roads and local roads. I have not seen a passing bay put into the N71 in west Cork. The last time we had a bypass put in was Skibbereen and that was 25 or 30 years ago. There are two bypasses proposed for Bandon with no movement happening. There is a bypass proposed for Innishannon with no movement and there is a bypass proposed for Bantry with no movement. We need movement. Lord God man, we need movement. We need simple passing bays. I can get caught behind two tractors doing silage when I go back down tomorrow or Friday morning and I could be caught for 15, 20, 25, 30 minutes behind them while I am trying to do a day's work like everybody else. Unfortunately, that puts people into a situation where they pass dangerously and could end up being killed.

We have a crisis whereby roads have collapsed in west Cork and have not been repaired. The council has walked away because it does not have the funding. I will not bore the Minister with the stats but here are two pictures. One is of Lyre in Clonakilty. That road collapsed a number of years ago and the council walked away and is not going to repair it because it does not have the funds. The other picture is of Allihies in west Cork. I was on these two roads in the last week. Again, the council has walked away. Yes, these are roads that are not as busy as we have in Bray and are not as busy as we have in Kildare or Cork city. We accept that, but they were roads that people used and that got from A to B. How can any country allow this to happen? These roads were built in 1800s, 1700s, 1600s, and we have not got a brown cent to repair them in 2024 and 2025. Something is wrong somewhere. I plead with the Minister to look at this going forward. These are sins of the past. They are not the Minister's sins, but they need to be looked at. Where and how are things going to change or am I going to be here in two, three or four years' time asking the same questions and getting nowhere? Simply put, Cork has been choked of funding for roads. Regardless of what anyone says, an independent report by the All-Island Research Observatory, AIRO, carried out in respect of Cork County Council clearly showed it was one of the worst-funded authorities in the country. That was an independent report, not a report from me or the council itself. Something has to change. The motorists in west Cork need to be treated with the same respect in terms of safety.

Is it a possibility in the Minister's budget going forward to have roadside verge cutting because of the dangers it is causing on regional roads and national roads? There was a report this week from the Irish Road Haulage Association. It is costing hauliers €1,000 for a mirror. I was at a funeral in Turkhead the other day. The Minister does not know Turkhead; I respect that. On the way down, both my mirrors were walloping off the verges that were coming out onto the road. Something is wrong somewhere when we have a local authority that says it is choked and does not have the funding to cut verges. They were cut when I was a child. They were always being cut. People will talk about biodiversity. Do not worry. There is no nesting of birds or bees on the side of the road. They are nesting on the inside. I am not saying we should do anything on the inside. I am saying there needs to be road verge funding put in place.

I want to talk about the electric charging points. There was a roll-out of that recently but I saw no area of west Cork being allocated funding. We are the furthest away, so we should be the number one area to get allocation of funding. Maybe the next time around that might be looked at.

Regarding Connecting Ireland and public transport, Independent Ireland got slated for saying we would like to see light rail coming to every part of rural Ireland. I have no problem taking it on the chin if we made a mistake. What I would like to see is a report on where light rail could be brought to parts of rural Ireland. I live in a community in Mizen Head. Light rail came there in 1850. I am now 125 km away from any rail, so something is wrong somewhere. If the rail cannot come to us, and I accept it certainly will not be coming for that type of journey, the report should set out the cost of where it could come to. Could it come to Bandon? Can a bus transport service connect us to rail? We need to look at areas like that. Connecting Ireland will not ever be connected if we do not look at areas like that. I can leave my house in the morning, as can others in Allihies and Ardgroom, and there is no sign for the airport and no sign for the train because there is no train and no airport. We have to travel 125 km before we see a sign. There should be connectivity going forward. That must be the same case in other places as well. The Minister will tell me to look at Local Link. It is delivering a fantastic service, and I do not want to come in here shooting my mouth off saying everything is wrong, but this is my chance to discuss these things with the Minister because he is the relevant Minister and he has his hands on the purse strings. We need to see if we can get that funding into Connecting Ireland and to look at roads that have been starved of funding and, in some cases, blocked of funding. I spoke to Councillor Declan Geraghty. He has the same issue in Galway. He brought verge cutting before the council recently. Councils throughout the country need a verge cutting grant because the verges, be they in Turkhead or Roscommon, are meeting each other in the middle of the road. That is the height of danger. People trying to walk with prams and people trying to cycle are out across the road and lorries are crossing the road trying to get away from overhanging trees or whatever. I would appreciate the Minister answering some of those questions.