Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is nice to see the Minister of State. She is very welcome. I raise the very serious issue of the lack of progress in regard to both public and road transport infrastructure for Limerick. It is causing major concern to people across the city and county.

I will cite a few of the key areas on which I would like to get a response from the Minister of State. The first is the northern distributor road. This is a key element of infrastructure for Limerick city. Right now we have serious traffic congestion at the Mackey roundabout. We have serious problems across the University of Limerick campus. At its peak level of busyness, it can take up to 45 minutes to get from the back of the campus to the front gates. We have massive traffic issues across Corbally, all of which would be relieved by the northern distributor road. Unfortunately, the senior Minister has set his face against this road being developed. It is not mentioned in the national development plan.

Then we get on to the Limerick-Shannon metropolitan area transport strategy plan, except we do not get on to that because even though it was supposed to be produced last year, we are still waiting for it. In fact, we do not know what is going to be in that plan at this point in time.

We then have the M20 motorway, something the Minister of State's party colleagues have spoken about for years. The linkage between Cork and Limerick is something I very much support. The vision that most of in the west have is for an Atlantic corridor linking Cork, Limerick and Galway, acting as a counterweight to Dublin and being able to use those synergies to produce a real development alternative for business, people and commuters. Unfortunately, again we seem to be on hold. The senior Minister has set his face against the M20 motorway. He is on record as saying that at a committee meeting on transport just two weeks ago. This is a road that people lose their lives on every year. It is a horrific road. My brother-in-law almost passed away in an horrendous accident on it just two years ago. The project is on hold. The argument being made by the Minister of State's senior colleague, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is that we need to focus on public transport instead. I do not agree with him. I do not think it should be either-or; we need to do both.

Let us look at public transport. The Government has been in place for nearly two years and the Minister has spoken about developing trains across Limerick city. I support that call. Sinn Féin is on record as far back as 2014 calling for a light rail network across Limerick city. Again, all we have had is talk. We need to see simple wins across Limerick city. For example, the Ballybrophy line, which runs into Limerick city, could be upgraded, but instead of doing it rapidly the Department is doing it literally on a piecemeal basis. Just two miles were upgraded last week. We still have six miles to do. We cannot increase the speeds or look at additional services until we do that. Currently, the journey time between Limerick and Galway is just under three hours. We could have stations at Moyross, Corbally and Dooradoyle. We have heard the Minister talk about it, but the problem is we are two years into the Government's term and nothing, as such, is planned. We are talking about a rail review that will not be completed until the end of the year, at which point I predict there will be a further feasibility study and then the lifetime of the Government will effectively be at an end.

What we have had on the one hand is that the Government has put on hold key infrastructural projects that Limerick city badly needs while, at the same time, we have had lots of talk about public transport investments but no deliverables that make a difference. I will give a simple example. Right now, anyone who wants to go from Castletroy to the university, a very common trip, has to take a bus into town and get a bus back out because the service works on a loop basis. There are simple wins that could be implemented to make public transport much more effective. If I want my kids to use the bus service in my village of Castleconnell, there is a wait of three hours for a bus to get into Limerick city on a Saturday. These are simple wins, but we have seen no concrete measures to support people in Limerick. There is great frustration. I look forward to the Minister of State's response.