James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Robert Troy for tabling this timely and important motion. Taxpayers pay their motor taxes and their property taxes, yet their roads are in a disgraceful state. Road users are angry, frustrated and fed up. Their cars are regularly damaged and they want to know where their money is going. Our regional and local roads account for 94% of all roads in the country - not just in rural Ireland but in our towns and cities.

Wexford has almost 3,473 km of roads in need of repair, reconstruction and maintenance. In the last three national roads surveys, Wexford finished in the bottom 5% or 10% for the state of our roads. This is self-evident by the state of the roads in Gorey, New Ross, Wexford, Enniscorthy and Riverchapel, to name but a few, and I challenge the Minister of State to go down to Wexford and see them. There is a running joke in some parts of Wexford that the potholes are so big they are fighting over the fishing rights. No one is laughing about the state of those roads, however.

The surface dressing cycle for a basic level of maintenance and safety requirement is for a road to be done once in every eight years. Currently, in Wexford it is once in every 40 years. The State has €1 million to waste on an unopened service station outside Gorey. The N11 is a carpark at peak time for commuters who cannot get housing in Dublin. Despite all this, there is a proposal to shut down the railway line south of Gorey. For health and safety reasons, economic reasons and the sake of fair play, fix the roads.

I listened to Sinn Féin moaning about Fianna Fáil. As usual, instead of holding the Government to account, it obsesses about Fianna Fáil. I remind Sinn Féin that we need a Government. While the rest of this Dáil made every effort to put a Government together, those in Sinn Féin took a ten-week holiday, preferring protest over responsibility.

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