David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for her response. Again, as she commented, this response is a cut-and-paste of what I have heard many times. I am sure my colleague here has heard it many times too. What is interesting here are the safety measures on the N25 between Carrigtwohill and Midleton, which is an extraordinarily dangerous and busy section of road. There is an intention to apply for planning permission in this regard during 2025. That could be in December 2025 and we might not see any works happening until 2026 or 2027. In the meantime, the €2 million already spent on that project has been wasted because the major upgrade that TII and the county council had worked so hard on was stalled and not allowed to proceed. Yet work is going ahead now on what we might call this Band-Aid type of effort, which will again take a lot of time, with more planning permission required, etc, instead of carrying on with the major scheme. I again wish to emphasise the safety of people. Lake View Roundabout is extraordinarily dangerous. Traffic lights should perhaps be put on it at this stage as an interim measure to make it safer. I know it would slow traffic down even further, but this roundabout is exceptionally dangerous.

Moving further east into Castlemartyr, as I said, the congestion there is mind-blowing. There are kilometres of traffic on both sides of the road there at certain times during the day. We then go on to Burgess further on, which again is exceptionally dangerous. There have been many accidents there.

Somehow or other, when we speak in this House about things like this, we get cut-and-paste answers. The Ministers are not available. I respect the Minister of State who has come here. She is working exceptionally hard. This is something that is happening a lot. We do not have Ministers here, but this House should take precedence. When I was a Minister of State, I always made sure I was in here answering questions put to the Department of Justice. It is not happening anymore. This is no slight on the Minister of State who is here now. This House should be number one and everything else should be numbers two, three and four. This is the national Parliament after all at the end of the day and it is being treated abysmally by some of the Ministers who hardly turn up at all. They send in a Minister of State to read a script that is a cut-and-paste of stuff we have heard many times previously. I am on about safety and saving lives this morning, however, and this is the message I wish to bring forward to the Minister and anyone else who might be listening.

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