Vol. 432 No. 7
12 Mr. McGinley asked the Minister for the Environment if his attention has been drawn to the fact that there is no national primary road serving north and west County Donegal and to the serious implications of the lack of such a facility to the development of the area; and the plans, if any, he has to connect that area of Donegal to the national primary road network.
North and west Donegal are served by national secondary road N56 for which grants of approximately £2.4 million were made available to the county council in 1992 and 1993. I have no plans to designate a national primary road in this area as any proposed route would not meet the relevant criteria.
I am sure the Minister realises that Donegal is a vast, sprawling county and that our main difficulty, compared with County Tipperary, is that we have to traverse more difficult terrain. The area running from Creeslough in the north to Killybegs in the south is not served by a national primary route. Will the Minister consider, in the interest of industrial job creation, extending an artery to the west? In my parish, as the Minister is aware, 1,000 people are employed in an industrial estate but have severe difficulties in getting to a national primary route through mountains as far as Letterkenny. Will the Minister consider an allocation, perhaps from the Cohesion Fund, to improve that road?
In case anyone is under the impression that no one can get to the home of the All-Ireland football champions, the N13 which runs from Derry to Letterkenny, the N14 which runs from Letterkenny to Strabane and the N15 which runs to Sligo are all national primary routes serving Donegal. While I accept the point made by the Deputy that the terrain in County Donegal is difficult, the designation of new primary roads would present a difficulty. However, there is a need for additional resources to upgrade existing regional routes. The designation of a primary route would not mean anything unless it can be improved. I hope to achieve two objectives in the context of the national plan, the first of which is to have a more even spread, in terms of total resources, across the country so far as possible and, second, to provide for increased investment in non-national, regional routes which serve industry, farming and tourism in many of the areas to which the Deputy has referred which need better support. I will try to find the resources necessary to upgrade existing roads.
