Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To address the Minister’s questions, there is provision for replacement surfacing in the immediate areas around the Dunkettle interchange as part of its upgrade in recent years. That is still ongoing. On the Ringaskiddy project and the noise action plans that have been prepared for that, that is on the south side of the river so I do not know whether the remit of the noise action plans extend to the eastern part of the city that I am talking about.

I imagine it is quite a big undertaking noise barriers are needed to be erected the full length of that motorway. I do not necessarily agree that this might be the best course of action here but I am not an engineer. If it is the case, that would be a considerable cost to a local authority. I expect it would cost multiple millions of euro just to erect sound barriers on that 10 km stretch of motorway. Local authorities do not have that kind of funding and they are telling us that year in, year out. That is why we made the ask leading up to the last two budgets that this would be a specific line item in the roads budget. It is not acceptable or realistic that the local authority would be asked to find an extra €10 million or whatever it would be, and that is just for this stretch of motorway. It is not including the dozens of other sections that are adversely affected.

With regard to the ongoing speed limit review under the Road Traffic Acts, which falls under the Minister’s remit, is there a possibility that the speed limit on this stretch of motorway would be reduced from 120 km/h to 100 km/h to hopefully reduce the noise levels there?

The Minister said that this issue is ultimately the local authority’s responsibility. If a local authority is in receipt of information that shows that decibel limits have been breached for the best part of a decade what responsibility is on it to make sure it steps up and does the work? It is grand to publish plans but if local authorities are not making any demonstrable efforts to tackle that, what is their responsibility?

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