Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. He does not seem to grasp the crisis I am talking about. He is always welcome to west Cork, one of the most stunning parts of our country. However, it is not Jurassic Park, where you drive in and drive out waving and smiling. We live there with the unfinished bypasses and those that have not been done at all. We live with no simple passing bays being built on the N71 or the R586. It is not going on for two or three years but for decades. The Taoiseach keeps mentioning one bypass but it is two bypasses for Bandon. I am shocked Senator Lombard did not sit the Taoiseach down with Cork County Council officials and arrange a meeting to talk about the lack of funding in the AIRO report.

I ask the Taoiseach one more time to take up my offer. I invite him to west Cork to discuss the roads funding crisis for bypasses and passing bays immediately so the people of Goleen, Ballydehob, Schull and Skibbereen, all the way into Clonakilty, Bandon and Kinsale, can have the same type of road structure most people have throughout the country. We do not have it and are decades behind for bypasses in Bantry, southern and northern relief roads in Bandon and in Innishannon. It is on the Taoiseach’s watch. Will there be moves on any one of those bypasses?

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