Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle and his office for affording me this opportunity and the Minister for attending to reply to this important issue. It is 20 years since the M4 opened. It was a major boost to traffic at the time and has served its purpose well. With the passage of time, however, we have come to understand that its capacity is no longer capable of dealing with the volume of traffic on it. Three or four times per week, and sometimes every second morning, we hear without fail of an incident on the M4 between junctions 7 and 5. In some cases, this involves a minor accident. In others, it is a serious accident. In every case, it leads to considerable delays for morning commuter traffic. It happened as recently as yesterday morning, when a heavy vehicle had a contretempswith a van. The van lost out and ended high up on the embankment among the trees. Traffic was held up by at least an hour at a crucial time in the morning. Drivers cannot turn around on a motorway. It is not like a minor road.

I have referred to this situation before and the Minister is aware of it, but it is now vital that, at the earliest possible date, provision be made to upgrade the section of the motorway where it merges with the regional road, which was backed up yesterday almost all the way to Kilcock on one side and Lucan on the other. It is imperative that steps be taken to upgrade the road in accordance with what would normally be expected in such a situation. Doing so is not only important to morning commuters, but also to those in the transport sector, for example, Bus Éireann and Bus Átha Cliath, who travel on that road at every time. They are all waiting anxiously for an intervention to be made, and I am looking forward to the earliest possible intervention.

I will make another suggestion that would probably do no harm. That section of road could do with a police motorcyclist on a regular basis to monitor traffic. Something that we have all seen, including the Ceann Comhairle, is traffic moving from one lane to another and creating a serious opportunity for an accident to happen. Sometimes, vehicles move without signalling. Ramps at both ends of the interchanges are overloaded with traffic and need to be extended to ensure that vehicles merging with fast-moving traffic have an opportunity to pick up sufficient speed without causing an accident and vehicles heading onto the ramp can do so by moving from the motorway's high-speed lane into the slow lane earlier.

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