Dáil debates

Tuesday, 25 October 2011

2:00 pm

Photo of Alan ShatterAlan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

As someone who was in the city centre yesterday, I can say the weather conditions were exceptional. There was flooding in all sorts of locations. I would like to praise all of those working in the employment of the city council, the Garda Síochána and the fire service for the extraordinary work they did yesterday in very difficult circumstances. They dealt not only with traffic jams but with the exceptional and unusual flooding that took place at a variety of locations across the city, north and south. Certainly, there were traffic delays, but the traffic moved to a better degree than might have been anticipated. One of the difficulties that sometimes arises in extreme weather conditions of this nature is that traffic delays occur, not as a result of accidents, but as a result of dysfunctional traffic lights, which seem to be affected by extreme weather conditions. This is a matter for the city council, but too frequently at times of extreme wet weather, we see traffic lights ceasing to function and a traffic jam developing for no particular reason other than that.

The Garda traffic control centre, which is based at the Garda communication centre in Harcourt Street, co-ordinates the Garda response to traffic management issues in the Dublin region. At the control centre, there is direct access to an extensive range of CCTV facilities, including Garda, Dublin City Council, Dublin Port and Luas cameras. There is a considerable degree of co-ordination between the agencies when a major difficulty arises, which occurred yesterday evening.

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