Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We have a route option selection process going on for the new N24. I am talking specifically about the Cahir to Waterford stretch, or Cahir to Carrick-on-Suir in our case in Tipperary. Clonmel has a bypass for 20-odd years and it is like a car park morning and evening. It is proposed now to use that same bypass to link up with the new road. This is totally impractical. Clonmel town needs an outer ring road to take the traffic out of the town. It beggars belief that after all the planning, designing, land sterilisation and the planning permission being held up, we are back now looking at using the Clonmel bypass. They cannot widen it because there is nothing to widen. I am talking about from the Cahir Road roundabout to Moangarriff Road roundabout on the southern side and they need a proper outer relief road to relieve that bypass that is already chock-a-block with workers going to work, with housing, schools and everything. It is a car park from 7 until 10 in the morning and then the same in the evening. It is busy all the time as well. We need that rethought and we need to go back to the drawing board. They had sterilised the land for this road but now they are decided they are not doing it.

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