Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The problem is that in the east of the county, many of our young people and workers go to work in Galway city every morning and come out in the evening. They probably spend about an hour and half in traffic every day of the week trying to get in and out of work. There is no guarantee they will arrive on time. This is coupled with the fact we have been talking about putting in place a bus lane from Claregalway into the city since 2007. I think Noel Dempsey was the Minister for Transport at the time and it still has not happened. We need to do something about the traffic and the flow of traffic into the city.

When you look at the road from Castlebar or Shrule to Galway through Headford on the N84, there is a very poor road network with very little public transport. I met the NTA on this particular issue this week and I was told what it can do and that it will carry out a review. We have a situation where traffic is piling up on the outer edge of our city and is not getting in or around the city. We need a comprehensive plan and to put in place certain instruments that will start to build traffic flow into our city. Otherwise, we will be losing jobs and we will be losing sight of ourselves. In a region, the northern and western region, that is in decline according to the EU, we need to make sure we have proper investment in our infrastructure to allow us to reach our full potential.

Dexcom is being built in Athenry at present, which is great news, but we need to make sure we have the traffic and infrastructure to allow workers to get there. It is important we look at this as a comprehensive crisis in the west of Ireland that needs to be resolved. I ask the Taoiseach to give me his comments on this issue.

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