Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State at the Department of Transport for being here tonight to answer this question. He will be familiar with the N3 route I am talking about. Unfortunately, the motorway takes a sudden stop at Whitegate and we have a truncated version of that N3 all the way to Cavan town. I am incredibly proud and supportive of the work the road section of Cavan County Council is doing to develop that into a motorway through County Cavan, as we deserve and as County Meath has all the way down from Dublin into Cavan town.

What I am here to ask the Minister of State about tonight, however, is park-and-ride facilities. I have gone to see some of the facilities that are along the N3, particularly in our neighbours in County Meath. There is a fine example of exactly what I am talking about at Garlow Cross. We are a Government that is trying to promote public transport. We are a Government that is trying to promote care for our environment and our planet. To do that, we have to provide the facilities so that people can use public transport to our capital city. As the Minister of State will be aware, there are quite a lot of commuters from Cavan travelling daily to Dublin.

Specifically, I want to highlight Whitegate with the Minister of State tonight. Whitegate is on the eastern part of the county, just before the Meath border. At present, it is chaotic, dangerous and very unsafe, both for commuters and for those trying to park and ride because there is no dedicated facility for that. It is not equipped to do it for the number of people using it. Each morning when I am driving up to the Dáil, I say to myself there will be an accident because cars are so desperate to find a space, they are parking on the bus stop, which is to facilitate people embarking on and disembarking from public transport. I would like the Minister of State to speak to that.

Cavan County Council is engaging with Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, the National Transport Authority, NTA, and Bus Éireann. Feasibility studies and feasibility and option reports have been completed or are under way with those organisations to try and put in place a vision and a plan and give Cavan County Council the funding to enable it to deliver a proper park-and-ride facility that would be well utilised, I can tell the Minister of State, by people from all over the east of the county, taking in Munterconnaught, Maghera, Mullagh and Carrigabruse. At present, people are afraid to use it because it is so chaotic and dangerous.

While the Minister of State is doing that, it would be remiss of me not to take the opportunity also to highlight other danger areas such as at Lavey GAA, where people are using vacant spaces there for parking their cars. The football grounds are good. The club gives over some of its parking facilities for people to park safely, but it is a chaotic dangerous junction. If we do not get funding given to Cavan County Council to address that, an accident will happen.

The Lavey Inn is another fine example of where we could have a park-and-ride facility. Killygarry-Poles is another fine example of areas where people come to meet with the N3. The bus stop is there, the bus facilities are there but we do not have the park-and-ride facilities we really need to make it safe to encourage people using public transport.

When we are looking at that entire route, around Tractamotors, which I am sure the Minister of State is familiar with, another really dangerous junction is choking up traffic going in and out of Cavan town. Cavan County Council is working with consultants to try to address that, but I would ask the Minister of State to apply as much pressure as possible so that funding is made available to Cavan County Council to do these important works.

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