THOMASTOWN PEOPLE ABANDONED BY NRA
Issued : Tuesday 24 April, 2007
"It is a shocking fact that the people of the largest town in county Kilkenny have been abandoned in
their efforts to protect their lives from a serious traffic accident" stated Councillor Michael O'Brien.
"It is a shocking fact that the people of the largest town in county Kilkenny have been abandoned in
their efforts to protect their lives from a serious traffic accident" stated Councillor Michael O'Brien.
Councillor O'Brien was responding angrily to news that the National Roads Authority (NRA) had failed
to respond to a deputation request from Kilkenny County Council. At his request in February, Kilkenny
County Council wrote to the NRA seeking an exchange of views on how the authority could install
traffic management measures to divert heavy through traffic away from the town. This followed a serious
traffic accident in Thomastown when a articulated truck collided with a house in Mill Street, making the
family homeless and rendering their home unsafe for habitation.
Director of Services for Roads, John Mulholland told Kilkenny County Council Members that whilst
the NRA acknowledged receipt of the Council's request for a meeting, no agreement or date for such a
event has yet been indicated. Councillor O'Brien said that the law of averages would suggest that this
accident was likely to reoccur in Thomastown because its streetscape and road structure was never
designed to accommodate the kind of traffic type or volumes of the present day.
Rejecting attempts by other members of the Council to consider roadside adjustments in the town by
way of ‘Notice of Motion', as opportunistic, Mr. O'Brien said that the County Council owed it to the
people of Thomastown to use every possible genuine means of power and persuasion on national
government. He said that the traffic relief offered from the National Development Plan Dublin to Waterford
road is not due until 2011.
"Urgent interim measures will have to be put in place until this road is completed in 4 years time, and we
should be seeking the same powers of diverting heavy traffic that were recently invoked in Dublin to
prohibit heavy trucks from using the city centre, he said.
Kilkenny County Council agreed to seek an immediate meeting with the NRA at its February meeting to
be made up from all five Thomastown Area Councillors, and led by Council Chairman Billy Ireland.
Cllr 
