Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

The Minister has partly answered the question. Why, in the first instance, was this not an integral part of all major road construction projects? How could the NRA have contemplated links between Dublin and the main cities of Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Wexford without having service stations along the route? Anyone in their right mind who has travelled on a road would recognise that this was par for the course and the norm in any other country.

The Minister said the NRA was asked to review this in 2005, which is five years ago. Virtually all of the main routes have opened since then and much work could have taken place to ensure some formula was found to enable most of the new routes to have service stations by now.

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