Minister gives no response to Council despite Waterford road deaths

As the Plenary Council resumed last week for its first official meeting after the summer break, it didn’t come as a surprise to the Council Executive team to hear the concerns being raised by local councillors around the dangers of the N25.

Sinn Féin’s General Election candidate, Councillor Conor McGuinness was first to mention his disappointment regarding the lack of response from the Minister for Transport.

Addressing the chamber he said: “It's probably a year and a half now that I've be raising this and seeking that a delegation from this Council will be received both by the Minister and TII (Transport Infrastructure Ireland), and I understand that engagement has taken place with TII, and that delegation is going to go ahead.” 

“I just want to thank those at the top table who helped push that,” he added.

Cllr McGuinness continued: “It's regrettable that we have had no response back from the Minister for Transport. That is, I think, very shameful. I want to just put that on the record, but to thank the top table for the records in getting that delegation arranged to go to TII in the very near future."

Councillor Tom Cronin, a Fianna Fáil Councillor in the Dungarvan/Lismore area, agreed with Cllr McGuinness, as he too raised the dangers of the N25 “at several meetings over the last number of years.” 

“We have been left down when it comes to the N25 by the TII, serious funding needs to be put in place, because… it's deadly dangerous to be fair, so we need to get that meeting,” he said.

Councillor Liam Brazil, also on the N25 issue, asked if there could be a separate meeting organised between locals, Gardaí and Councillors to come up with a traffic management plan to deal with the issue of tailbacks and diversions for future road closures when a collision occurs.

Councillor Declan Barry then asked the Executive about there being a Road Safety Officer for Waterford, or having all schools within school safety zone, commenting: "We have to ensure that our school children are as safe as possible."

The Executive said Cllr Brazil's suggestion was "useful" and they will review the protocol for diversions; while the Executive confirmed to Cllr Barry that there is a Road Safety Officer, he was told information wasn't to hand of how many schools were in the safety zone. 

At the same meeting, it was brought to the attention of the Councillors that the roll out of speed limits being reduced across the city and county is to begin shortly. As a national initiative, 80km zones will be reduced to 60km and 50km zones will be reduced to 30km. The initiative is due to be completed imminently.