Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

When one hits the outskirts of Dublin on the M1 at 6 a.m., it is clear that the queues of commuters trying to access work in the city grow longer every day. The mixture of container freight is causing untold delays for those trying to get to work and school. Dundalk to Dublin off-peak can be achieved in one hour, but at rush hour it can take two and a half hours. That often means that people spend more time travelling than working. This morning one of my staff said that the bus she was on reached Bachelors Walk at 9.20 a.m. but did not arrive in Nassau Street until 9.45 a.m. That is a mere 750 m that could be walked in ten minutes, yet it took 25 minutes for the bus to travel the distance.

The level of gridlock that commuters to and from Dublin must endure daily is unacceptable. I use the M1 every day and know that a number of simple, short-term solutions could be implemented straight away in order to alleviate traffic on the main arterial roads into the city. For example, proper car-parking areas could be introduced to encourage more car pooling and park and ride facilities. I am sure we have all seen lines of cars parked close to roundabouts at entry points, particularly to the M1. Car parking should have been, and can be, included at the Apple Green stations that are readily placed at strategic locations along the motorway. While the port tunnel works well by taking trucks off the road and straight to their destination, there are major back-ups of trucks on the M1 heading towards the port tunnel. This is at rush hour and thus causes delays. I suggest that sea ferries should operate outside rush hour times. The current departure time of one ferry is 9.30 a.m. and this adds to our gridlock on our roads. We need some form of incentive to get trucks to switch from off-peak times, perhaps allowing them to pass through the various tolls free prior to 6 a.m. We could also stagger school opening times and introduce a range of other short-term measures. I could go on ad infinitumabout simple measures, rather than macro ones, but I will allow Deputy Donnelly to come in.

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