Dempsey to face pressure over final N11 upgrade

Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey will come under pressure to announce a completion date for the N11 dual carriageway when he opens phase two of the Gorey bypass in Co Wexford today. Some 14 kilometres of the €192 million Gorey bypass were opened last June, allowing traffic to avoid congestion in Gorey. This afternoon Mr Dempsey is to open a further seven kilometres.

However, local politicians, including Fianna Fáil councillors in Wexford and Wicklow, intend to ask the Minister to confirm whether funding to upgrade a final link in the N11 between Wexford and Dublin was switched to other projects.

The final 19-kilometre single-carriageway road, which links bypasses of Arklow and Rathnew, has seen 22 fatal crashes since 1997 and 23 serious collisions in the 12 months to last April, according to statistics compiled by the Road Safety Authority.

Among the dead were Senator Michael Enright, from Wexford, who was killed with three other people in a crash in 1997, and five people who died when a lorry and a school bus crashed in 1998. So far this year there have been three fatalities on the road.

Labour councillor Nicky Kelly said that compulsory purchase orders for the road were completed in January 2005, but money for the work appeared to have been "transferred to the Waterford-Dublin dual carriageway".

Fianna Fáil councillor Malcolm Byrne said that public representatives from Wexford and Wicklow would be raising the issue with Mr Dempsey when he opens the final stretch of the Gorey bypass today. "It is the last link between south of Gorey and Donnybrook and a number of Wexford as well as Wicklow people have been killed there," he said. "We will be hoping to impress on the Minister the importance of upgrading this road as soon as possible."

However, the Department of Transport has indicated that work on the link will not begin until 2010 at best, as resources have been prioritised for major inter-urban routes. Instead, the Garda Traffic Corps is to institute a road safety programme on the N11 in south Wicklow and north Wexford.