If Simon Harris is ‘Taoiseach for all’, let him prove it

Dear Sir,

Something needs to change. Now that Simon Harris has taken up the role of Taoiseach, he is very quick to repeat the phrase that he will be “Taoiseach for all”.

I would ask him the question does the ‘all’ “include the thousands of people that use the treacherous N17 daily?

The people who travel this road bringing their children to school or travelling to work putting their lives at risk traveling that road every single day?

This road was just about fit for the traffic that was on it 30 years ago when the width of the average salon car was five and a half foot wide.

Today’s best-selling cars are more than 6ft wide.

Cars are wider, but this road isn’t.

The same scenario with buses and heavy goods vehicles (HGV), that now are wider, taller and faster.

There are numerous examples of this.

Last September at Cashel on the N17 just outside Tubbercurry a bus and a HGV met and couldn’t pass each other at a point in the road and more recently on the 25 th of March a HGV went off the road at Rinbaun near Ballinacarrow and ended up in a drain, the second one to go off near the same spot in 18 months.

There is no forgiveness on this road at dangerous junctions, bad bends, the camber of the road, no hard shoulder and this is classed a national primary road.

I personally have lost count of the number of accidents I have attended with my colleagues on this road over the years, but how many more do we need to attend before the government decide to give the people of the West of Ireland a road they deserve and a road they will feel safe driving on.

If Simon Harris is indeed a Taoiseach for all let him prove it and start by looking after the people of the West of Ireland and give us the road infrastructure, we deserve. Jason Gorman, Sinn Fein Local Election Candidate, Tubbercurry / Ballymote LEA.