John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Minister of State who I am sure is familiar with the N11 road which runs through my constituency of Wicklow. It is gridlocked most days - both northbound and southbound - with people commuting from working in the city centre and people going about their daily lives. In the national development plan, there was a commitment to carry out a major upgrade - a critical upgrade - to the N11 and a considerable amount of work was done to bring forward a plan to see that major upgrade.

Unfortunately, due to ideological reasons on the part of the former Minister for Transport, Eamon Ryan, funding at the end of phase 2 was pulled for that major upgrade scheme in 2022. In its place, we have what is called the N11-M11 bus priority interim scheme along the N11, which goes southbound as far as the Glen of the Downs. I am all for public transport but I am also all for common sense and unfortunately, what we are seeing in the proposal is not common sense. The proposal put forward by TII, Wicklow County Council and other bodies behind this project, plans to close off a critical artery that runs into Bray, namely, the Herbert Road, by closing both access on and off the N11 via the Herbert Road.

The Herbert Road is a vital artery that runs into Bray. There are only four major roads in and out of the town and the Herbert Road is one of them. There is chronic congestion within the town of Bray at present and the Herbert Road acts as a release mechanism. It helps alleviate much of the traffic and congestion in the town centre, allowing people coming home from work, going to school, going to work, etc., to bypass the town centre and come in off the N11 via the Herbert Road.

Despite a public consultation process in which thousands of submissions were made, including a number of petitions containing more than 4,500 signatures both from residents and businesses in the town voicing their complete opposition to the closure of the Herbert Road, at the end of phase 2 and the publication of the option selection report which came out in April of this year, all those concerns voiced by the many thousands of residents, businesses and other people who use the road unfortunately fell on deaf ears. In that report, it was still recommended to move forward to phase 3 and to close off the Herbert Road.

I cannot tell the Minister of State enough how important that road is to the residents of the area. A couple of years ago, the road was closed off to allow for some critical works to be carried out. A pedestrian crossing, public lighting, etc., were put in and that access point was closed off for a couple months to facilitate that work. It brought not just the localised area around that section of the Herbert Road to a gridlock but also the entire town of Bray.

The Minister of State has the power, and the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has the power at this stage at the end of phase 2 to intervene, similarly to what Eamon Ryan did when he was Minister, to stop this illogical, nonsensical and crazy proposal at this stage and to allow common sense to prevail.

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