Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will conclude by asking the Deputy to cast his eyes even further east. One of his colleagues, Deputy James O'Connor, from the eastern side of Cork, is rightly making the case that towns and villages such as Castlemartyr are currently suffering what Macroom is suffering with through traffic throttling urban and village life. We must think about where is our first priority. I know that section of road very well from Ballincollig. Deputy Moynihan is correct. There tends to be a lot of high-speed traffic. Not only are there a lot of small roads feeding in, there are also many residences along that carriageway that are, effectively, opening out onto a national road. There are very difficult circumstances. I must be hones,t however. I cannot go to Deputy O'Connor to say that his project has priority and at the same time say to Deputy Moynihan that this road also is a priority. Funding every project is going to be difficult given the funding constraints we have. There may be other measures we can look at in the meantime, pending the funding approval. Can we examine the issue of speed on that road for example? If road safety is the key issue, which it is, are there other measures we can implement that may be lower cost but with more immediate traffic management results that might improve the safety performance of the road? This is one of the questions I might put to TII.

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