Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I welcome the new bus services as well. They are excellent and it is major progress. With regard to the road, it is very important that we see progress now into 2024. That comes down to the funding being provided by the Minister's Department through TII. It is really crucial that the remaining sections would be allowed to progress and that the tenders would be allowed to progress as well. Whereas, thankfully, in recent years we have not had fatalities on the sections of road we are talking about, there have been fatalities on the entire Tralee to Dingle road. We also cannot discount the fatalities that have happened beyond recent years. Those people matter too and their families still miss them.

We have to look at the bigger picture here. The reason for doing this road in the first place was because of the geographic peripherality suffered by the Dingle Peninsula and the wider economic challenges faced as a result of that. This road is really important.

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