Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the fact that the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport is in the House to respond to the issue raised by Deputy Harris and myself. As Deputy Harris has said, this is the second time this year the N11 has flooded, causing chaos on the road. The problem arose at the point where the M50 meets the N11. This is a major route, classified as a Euro route, E01, running to the ports, and on the north side, joining the M1. This is the major beltway around the country. If such a flooding incident was repeated on the M1 junction with the M50 near the airport, there would be an immediate response to deal with it. It would not be tolerated.

Myself and Deputy Harris are calling for an engineering and maintenance review of this road. I believe there is something fundamentally flawed here because the site in question seems to be in no-man's land. I note that the director of services in Wicklow County Council briefed members yesterday about a multi-agency meeting that took place, involving ten agencies in total, on 9 April at the offices of Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council. Three issues were discussed, namely, a review of communications, an evaluation of incident roles and responsibilities and flood mitigation measures. The first two are essentially fire brigade or crisis management issues but the third one is about dealing with the problem. We must prioritise dealing with this issue because we can have all of the communications, diversion co-ordination and so forth that we like, including diverting traffic through Bray and causing major traffic problems there, but until we deal with the cause of the problem, we will get nowhere.

It is a simple matter in my opinion, as someone who knows a little about this, of drainage. We must be able to get the water off the road quickly when there is major precipitation. That must be addressed as soon as possible. The responsibility must be given to the National Roads Authority, NRA, or one of the local authorities to carry out the necessary works. I note that a consultative company has been engaged to carry out a study and report back by June of this year, but we need immediate action.

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