I thank the Minister for attending to address a very important matter for the people of County Galway and Galway city, the urgent necessity to provide finance for a new road — the Kingston road from the Knocknacarragh area — from the west of County Galway and for the expanding west part of the city into the city centre. This has become probably the fastest urban growth area in the country over the past number of years as a total of 2,200 houses have been built in the relatively short space of a few years.
Unfortunately, because of bad planning, proper provision for infrastructural services in this area has not been made. Residents in Knocknacarragh and along the coast road in Connemara leading to Spiddal and Carraroe are now delayed at peak times for up to one hour because of the major traffic using the road.
Repeated efforts have been made over the past number of years to have money provided by the Department of the Environment and many politicians made repeated requests to the previous Minister for the Environment in this respect, unfortunately to no avail. I ask the Minister to consider providing money on a phased basis over the next few years for the construction of this road, which, it is estimated, will cost approximately £4 million. To date, the Department refused to recognise the urgency of the project. While significant money is being invested in national primary roads, this is the busiest road outside the Pale. Will the Minister ensure it gets the priority it deserves within the Department of the Environment?
I realise that money is in short supply and that this is the reason it has not been provided to date, but we cannot put this project on the long finger. The only advice given to Galway Corporation by the Department of the Environment is to provide funding for the road from its block grants. The block grant is not significant and if Galway Corporation were to follow this advice nothing would be done over the next few years apart from the construction of this road. Extra financial resources must, therefore, be made available to Galway Corporation to enable it to get on with the job. The only other alternative is for developers to build the road as development takes place. This is not acceptable because if this approach were to be taken, the road would take ten to 12 years to build.
Will the Minister give an indication of the volumes of traffic, the nature of the delays on this road and her plans to provide funding? People in Galway would be happy if it was provided over a number of years. They do not expect it to be provided all at once. We need an indication that money will be provided over the next few years to do this urgent job. A great deal of frustration is caused to residents who find themselves in a new area with no access because of the lack of proper roads.
