FIANNA Fáil TD Willie O’Dea brought the issue of traffic noise and the impact it has on Limerick people to the attention of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in the Dáil.
“There is a classic example of it in my own constituency,” Deputy O’Dea said.
“It relates to the impact of traffic noise on people who live in the vicinity of that traffic and the impact it has on their homes and on their lives.
“There is a well-known system for measuring this and deciding whether the limit has been reached and whether the noise exceeds the permitted limit. When that happens, remediation measures are proposed.”
According to the Limerick politician, the difficulty is that responsibility to put those remediation measures in place lies with the local authority, who have told him that it does not have any funding stream to do these works.
“The study has been done, the remediation measures have been proposed, and the problem remains unresolved simply because there is no funding stream.
“Initially, there was a debate as to whether it was down to Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, or the local authorities. It is the responsibility of the local authorities,” O’Dea explained.
In response, the Taoiseach said he is familiar with this issue from his own constituency which has the M50 running through it.
“Down the years, we have engaged in various battles with TII, previously the National Roads Authority (NRA), and the local authorities to secure noise management measures, which can make a big difference in people’s lives. I have seen noise measures be put in place and noises reduced, although only so much can be done, unfortunately.
“It has been a long time since I engaged on this issue, but the Deputy has raised it and it is important to people in Limerick and elsewhere, so I will endeavour to come back to him with more information when I get it,” the Taoiseach concluded.
