Michael D'Arcy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister and wish her the best of luck in her important portfolio. Tourism equates to approximately 10% of our GDP, but it is more than just that. A large number of people beyond that 10% are employed in the sector. There is a great deal of seasonal and part-time work. As I have stated each time I have spoken about how we can get out of this crisis, our success will be measured in how many people return to work.

I do not want to mention every town, village and parish in my constituency, but I will mention a project that I have been pursuing for some time. As deputy leader of the Green Party, I am sure the Minister will appreciate it. It is the reconfiguration of the old N11, which was the road all the way up to Dublin city centre. Now that there is the M11, we have a large carriageway of 6 m and 8 m in width, allowing two cars to pass, that has been downgraded. Although roads have been reconfigured on occasion, none has been reconfigured with a plan to travel a great distance and link up clusters of projects and areas.

I met the Minister's predecessor, former Deputy Ross, about this project when he was in the tourism role. It would link south County Dublin along the old N11 all the way down to Rosslare. A wide portion of the road can be reconfigured through some engineering work in a safe manner. I am not just talking about having a line on the road with a cyclist painted on it. Rather, this route would be detached properly and safely from the vehicle carriageway so that families could travel from south County Dublin to Rosslare and there connect to the Rosslare greenway, which in turn connects to the New Ross greenway, which has started work in recent weeks.The New Ross greenway will connect to the Waterford-Dungarvan greenway. Suddenly, a project that started in south County Dublin, which benefits Senator Seery Kearney’s constituency, would go all the way through Wicklow, Wexford and Waterford, to the far side of Dungarvan and entering County Cork. The project would connect all those towns and villages that had been suffering because the motorway is in place. In a village such as Inch, there was a vibrant pub with 14 or 15 rooms, called Toss Byrne's, but it is now closed. Given that these cyclists and tourists would be able to use the greenway all the way down, connecting south County Dublin with Cork, there would now be a project on a national scale.