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

I welcome the news that TII is working with Cavan County Council and that three areas or locations have been identified. I want to take this opportunity to thank Paddy Connaughton, our director of services, with whom I know the Minister of State will have worked closely, and John McKernan, our senior executive. I know they feel passionately about this. If there is money to be got, they are always front and centre in seeking it.

Whitegate is the most obvious and evident location where there is an issue. There is not even the use of a GAA park. The Lavey Inn kindly gives over parking. We have nowhere to take ground from. You see people parking in the bus stop which is really dangerous. People feel so passionately about this that they are coming out to protest on Friday. I want to make sure the Minister of State gives all the support he can to the county council that it gets the funds to deliver.

I will also take the opportunity to say I also made a submission on the rail lines. I want Cavan to be included in that. We are looking at developing the N3 from Whitegate to Cavan town. We should be ambitious enough to look at a real rail line, one that gives proper public transport all the way to Cavan town. It is maybe more than two years since I first sought a meeting with the NTA on a dangerous junction on the main street in Bailieborough. Two years on, we are still looking at a very dangerous junction. It is hostile towards pedestrians and traffic. It causes huge congestion. HGVs have to go through the town. It is an absolutely chaotic junction. I ask the Minister of State, if he can, to put some pressure on the NTA in order that it would be very forthcoming with Cavan County Council to make that junction a priority in the works for which it is providing funds to the council. It must ensure that junction is addressed sooner rather than later, or there will be a serious accident.

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