Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not an insulting person to anybody and I will not be insulting to the Minister or his officials, but I am looking at the Minister's reply and it is all about budgets. It is telling us about works that were carried out which are useless and the engineers in Roscommon County Council will tell the Minister that they are useless.

This is about lives, families and people. This is not about the type of press release which the Minister has given us today.

I challenge the Minister to come down on that route with Deputy Scanlon and me. It is not acceptable to put this on the long finger. The work that was carried out there is not sufficient. In the name of God I ask the Minister please to think about people and lives. He knows about the volume of traffic that is on that road, how it is increasing all of the time and how all of the Sligo and Donegal traffic comes on that route as well. This is a deathtrap, make no mistake about it, as are several junctions along the N4 and N5.

Despite the Minister mentioning four projects in Roscommon which we welcome and which are ongoing, nothing is being done with the junctions off the N4 and N5 which seriously need work. I am putting it on record that more lives will be lost on those routes unless the Minister takes action as quickly as possible.

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