This debate is on road safety. I will tell the Minister of State all about road safety in County Wexford and the area of south Wicklow where I live. We have been forced to drive on deadly, dangerous roads for three decades now. I am sure the Ceann Comhairle will verify this. Roads are disintegrating in front of our very eyes; I kid you not. Even today, on the East Coast FM news, an engineer said he had to close many roads in south Wicklow for safety reasons because they had been washed away, and they were like this before the flood. County Wexford was at the bottom of the intercounty roads comparison study back in 1995. Three decades later, we are still at the bottom. When I meet oncoming traffic at night, say if I am coming from Leinster House or wherever, I am on narrow, winding, uneven back roads so I have to make a split-second decision as to whether to swerve across the road to avoid a massive pothole that will burst my car's tyres, wreck its rims and knock off the tracking of the steering. We do not bother doing tracking any more because it is a pointless exercise. There are deep, sharp craters with jagged edges on them and most of them are hidden beneath pools of water because there is a huge amount of surface water. It is absolutely infuriating that the Government does not view this as a primary road safety concern. It is all down to Government funding because there has been a deficit of €66 million since 2008 in County Wexford. We have 2,000 km of tertiary and secondary roads. They are so neglected now that the head of engineering in Wexford sent a document to the Oireachtas last year saying we would need €190 million to bring these roads up to what would be classed as a passable state. Just under 30% are in need of complete reconstruction. This is the elephant in the room that nobody is talking about in terms of road safety. We are anxiously awaiting the funding announcement to local authorities. I was raising this for ten and a half years on the council. I have been writing every week as a TD to the Minister's office. It will be like the lad in "The Shawshank Redemption" - I will write twice a week if I do not get a reply soon. I may have to hold people back. People are so angry over this because nobody is listening. The Minister's own quote is "the objective is to allocate funding to eligible local authorities on [an] equitable a basis ... taking the length of the road network into account." It is the complete wrong metric to approach-----
Sentiment score: -0.03
I have only spoken for two minutes.
Sentiment score: 0.00
I was told I had three minutes, but anyway.
Sentiment score: 0.00