Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to ask the Taoiseach about a problem that has arisen mainly in urban areas. There is a classic example of it in my own constituency. It relates to the impact of traffic noise on people who live in the vicinity of that traffic and the impact it has on their homes and on their lives. There is a well-known system for measuring this and deciding whether the limit has been reached and whether the noise exceeds the permitted limit. When that happens, remediation measures are proposed.

The difficulty is that responsibility to put those remediation measures in place lies with the local authority, but it has told me locally and otherwise that it does not have any funding stream to do so. The study has been done, the remediation measures have been proposed, and the problem remains unresolved simply because there is no funding stream. Initially, there was a debate as to whether it was down to Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, or the local authorities. It is the responsibility of the local authorities.

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