Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to bring up a particular issue. It is the ongoing malfunction of the pedestrian lights at the roundabout with the inner relief road. I am talking about the N52 and Avenue Road, the R172, a major intersection in Dundalk. This has been brought up with me by Councillor Kevin Meenan but also here. If people put on LMFM and nearly every morning, they will hear a different elected representative bringing up this issue and the great worry that is there. Louth County Council executive is progressing with installing zebra crossings at the roundabout. There are two lines of traffic, trucks going through there and so on, and all the elected representatives I have spoken to and all the residents - this is literally beside my house - are vehemently opposed to the installation of zebra crossings there. We are talking about serious road safety concerns. If this change happens, it will impact pedestrians. We are talking about children and we will have many other vulnerable road users. There are active travel plans, and everybody hopes those will eventually improve road safety at the junction, but we all know that at times there are delays in this regard so we cannot rely on it at this point.

I would see this as a downgrading step for road safety. It is in no way acceptable. A great many of the members of Louth County Council, not only those in that municipal district but right across Dundalk and further afield, are looking at the county council executive to reconsider the installation of zebra crossings at the roundabout. Perhaps there are measures in the Local Government or Road Traffic Acts that could be used to compel the council executive to fix or replace the current pedestrian lights and not progress the plans to install zebra crossings here. People are incredibly worried. They know right well that some of this is about saving money for eventual plans, but the problem in between is that we do not know what the impact will be. I agree with what everybody said earlier about the issue of potholes and I imagine it will be said more. Councillor Antóin Watters has talked about it constantly in reference to north County Louth. Louth County Council looked for €1.6 million to deal with just the damage done by floods. It got €1 million but that will not look at the damage right across the board and the legacy issues there.

As I always say at this point, I could go on.

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