Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an nGrúpa Neamhspleách. I thank the Independent Group for giving us the extra time.

This is another fine mess the Minister has got us into. As Minister for Transport when this broke, he showed no cop on, copped out and went to COP27. I heard the Tánaiste saying it was wrong and might not happen. I heard the Taoiseach say something similar but they had to wait until the man himself came back from Egypt. I heard him when he came back saying we could not look at it again, that it was an agreed deal unless the money we get from this came from someplace else and that he was putting the money directly into projects. No doubt they are some of the Minister's pet Green Party projects. I want to know cad a tharla. Cad a tharla? "Cad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan adhmad? ... Níl trácht ar Chill Chais". What has happened? How did the change come about?

I have no hang-up about public private partnerships. I welcomed them when they started but it is the ineptitude of our system whereby senior management in Departments cannot seem to get any fair contract for the taxpayers. Look at the children’s hospital, broadband and scandal after scandal. No doubt there is another project which I am aghast the Minister is still thinking of going ahead with, namely, piping water from Tiobraid Árann to Baile Átha Cliath. Before someone says I have something against Dublin, I do not but it is mad and daft, considering the size of the pipe, the damage to the ecology, flora and fauna and the whole excavation, to pump it to Dublin with 48% leakage. The Government could not fix it though it had the ideal opportunity to do so during Covid, when there was not a vehicle on the road.

Getting back to taxpayers, I travelled to Cavan last night from Tipperary. My colleague travelled from west Cork and has been through six tolls. A person was on to my office today who lives in my constituency and works in Cork. Between tolls and fuels, it now costs €8,000 for that person to travel to Cork to work from Tipperary, which is 60 or 70 miles at most. That is savage. She gets no tax allowance for that. No one takes account of that as regards her wages and the taxes she pays. It is criminal.

I heard Deputy Verona Murphy talk about the toll bridge. What about all the fumes and pollution with all this stop-start? We know how hard trucks are on fuel. Of course, the more axles on a truck, the less damage on the roads. The Government does not seem to get that and is fleecing the lorry drivers. It is massive. Think of that both ways. It is incredible. Why did the Minister allow this to happen? He had representatives of this company contacting his Department. That is what I understood. He had somebody looking into it and knew this would happen before he flew off to Egypt. He was forewarned. He can tell me I am wrong if he wants. If he did not know, he should have. He must have some oversight over these bodies or does he just allow them to charge what they like and gouge who they like?

More important is the issue concerning the TII. I thought the National Roads Authority, NRA, was stood down and TII set up. I found out lately from a person who gave me a lift and who works in one of those agencies that both exist. They are still there. Why is it that we need all these big boards?

I was delighted when we decommissioned the NRA. I said for years we decommissioned the IRA and could not stand down the NRA. Its representatives are impossible and arrogance oozes out of them. I meet TII representatives if I can meet them. You would meet the Pope a lot more easily. I have met the Pope three times. The disdain you get from them. They put up signs outside Showerings, or Bulmers, in Clonmel and increased it just inside of a junction from 50 km/h to 100 km/h when people are coming out of Redmondstown junction in fear of their life trying to turn right. We met the TII, NRA or whoever the hell they were, and they would not listen to us. It was the same in Carrick-on-Suir. They put a 100 mph speed limit on the N24 right into the Tinvane estate and the two estates coming out there. It is unsafe for people coming out. Would they listen to us? We were treated with arrogance. Councillor Kieran Bourke and I, along with Deputy Cahill I think, were at the meeting and it was still the same. People are in fear for their lives but you cannot talk to these unelected quangos that show contempt for public representatives. We have to meet the people and try to work with officials to make things safer.

An Teachta O'Donoghue will talk about the N7 between Portlaoise and Limerick, as he travels it every day. It is a warpath. When it rains, the drainage is obviously wrong, the camber is wrong and there is something wrong with the surface. I am not an expert but I know a bit about roadmaking. That is what people tell me who are experts. Members of the Garda are called out to accidents and are afraid for their lives. People have lost their lives and been maimed on it. There is accident after accident because of wrong drainage, wrong bitumen in the finished project and a wrong camber. It is a recipe for disaster and is unfair to motorists. There is a sign up now catching them for the average speed they do between two cameras. I have no problem with that but have a problem that the Government cannot put up flashing lights when it rains to warn of water ponding on the roads. It is a new motorway. Members of the Garda will say privately there is something wrong with it because they are out there every day. Council officials will say it, but not publicly. The Government will not give in, but people are unsuspecting.

It is the same away on the M8 between Cahir and Mitchelstown. On mountainy terrain in the Galtee Mountains, inferior pipes were put in. I said it at the time. There are 8-inch pipes taking water from streams that a 10-foot pipe would not take. The road is getting flooded and unsuspecting motorists are being wiped out, upside down, jackknifed trucks, you name it. It is scandalous that we have roads like that. Since the drains were put in and the roads opened ten years ago at least, nobody looked at the inlets or the drains. They are all blocked and streams are blocked and water is flowing down onto the motorway for the last six weeks. Government says it is fine, it is delivered and the PPP is finished and signed off on. The people who built it are gone. They did a good job but we need maintenance on these motorways. We need to make sure water is not getting onto them. Ecology and waterfalls change. Nobody is looking at the drainage or up in Coillte at the different happenings up there. There are huge issues that need to be rectified.

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