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KERRY MAY TAKE the unprecedented step of attempting to declare the county an island if issues surrounding access to the Kingdom aren’t addressed.
Councillors yesterday morning voted unanimously in favour of a motion calling on the National Roads Authority and the Government to address the poor condition of several main access roads.
They will take the matter to Europe if their calls go unanswered.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, South Kerry Independent Party councillor Michael Gleeson said:
The three major roads into the county are all in a deplorable state, or are gridlocked.
“I was asking in view of the continued failure of the NRA to do anything.”
If authorities here in Ireland do not act satisfactorily, they will seek help from the Europe over the social and economic isolation Kerry has faced, Gleeson added.
“And if they don’t respond, we will seek island status,” he said, as the county has become so isolated, and noted the range of grants and supports available.
Fianna Fáil’s Niall Kelleher, who seconded the motion, said that the current intention is that it would only be attempted if they don’t “get a fair hearing” from Europe.
He said that bypasses have been in the pipeline for years, and while some came to fruition in other parts of the country, Kerry has been left behind.
“We’ll see what happens, but I don’t think we’ll be allow get out a JCB and dig around the county’s border”, Gleeson noted, although joked that it would create construction jobs and could even be used to boost Kerry’s Irish speaking regions.
First published 12.22pm
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It sounds like something off Waterford whisperers
Kerry better hold the horses. Cork is holding a vote for independence first..
The loyal state of Cork? Are ye going back to the days when Cork was known as Loyal Cork? Back rebelling against the English Parliament in favour of the English King?
And they get upset with kerryman jokes
I live in skerries, what the chances we can become a space station.
I know we are not orbiting the earth and may never do so but if Kerry’s an island then anything is possible
Healy Rae’s gotta have something to do with this.
Just bought a new tarring lorry is my guess – sure the money for cutting the verges must be in now – remember he was sitting on the lawnmower cutting the verge during the holidays there a few years ago – didn’t want his picture taken working – must have been the first politician in the history of the State who didn’t want his picture taken working – but then again Jobbridge wasn’t in at the time I suppose …
Clearly Kerry can’t be an island, but we should support it right to want to be an island!!
Splitters!
Splitters!
Well played sirs, clearly it is symbolic of their struggle against reality.
I don’t like what you’re saying Barry, that sounds like talk from the People’s Front of Kenmare AND the Popular People’s Front of Kenmare!
To be fair plenty of their roads both to and in and around kerry are shocking you can understand where their coming from but threatening to be seen as a island?? I think that’s fcuking hilarious haha some neck.
WTF
If Kerry (and other counties too) were not so fond of one-off houses ribboning along important R and N class routes the bypasses would have been easier/cheaper to do.
The deplorable planning (or lack of rather) is a major contribution to the issues.
While I am against one-off housing, I am equally against ugly estates that have 100-look-a-like houses.
County Councils should zone areas for ordinary people to buy a site in a town/village and build in their own style. The current fiasco forces people to buy a house in an estate if they don’t have enough money/time to build their own. Try to build your own and you’re forced to go miles out into the countryside to find an affordable site.
Time to CPO land for housing that benefits the ordinary aspiring homeowner rather than the developer.
With all that in place proper road and rail services can be deployed.
@ Thelonewhatever,That comment is contradictory to the point being made.
County Kerry is the most amazing place in Ireland.
Lone hurler, seems to me you lack a fundamental understanding of how towns like the gradually developed ones you seem to be referring to are built. It’s not like someone said “we like this place” and just set up shop. There are so many factors which led to towns springing up that you couldn’t possibly artificially induce in a planned setting.
Where are the services in the towns you suggest going to magically appear? Are you going to sell lots to businesses as well, and if so, how do you entice business owners when there are probably loads of way more viable options in towns which are already established? Setting up a new business is a risky enough procedure without adding to the risk further by opening in an area where nobody lives yet.
People will also find it extremely difficult to get planning permission for their dreamhouses because it will be so difficult to coordinate the area when there are no reference points. For example, an instance where I want to build a south-facing house and I would end up with my living room window looking directly into my neighbours downstairs jacks.
What a crazy notion, I can’t wait to hear more about how you think what you suggested would be possible.
I fully support Kerry Independence !
There are bypasses needed all over Kerry and the borders!
The Macroom bypass has to go ahead some day as well as Abbyfeale, Listowel etc!
The driving times to Cork and Limerick need to be vastly improved!
Kerry was left behind during the Celtic tiger years with unemployment at 12% while the national average was just over 4%!
Quicker access to Limerick and Cork would help to create jobs in the region!
I disagree totally. Wasn’t John O Donohoe spending lotto money down there like it was going out of fashion? Then the Healy- Raes took up the mantle. I think ye have done very well out of the taxpayer!!! What about Cavan and Leitrim? They were never looked after in any year
Cavan is doing a good line in tax-free car-parks in Dublin from what I remember -
Notice they don’t want to be a self funded island!
Is achill self funded? Or the Aran Islands?
No but they’re also, y’know… islands.
Ssshhhhh Dylan no sensible talk here!!!!
I moved to Kerry recently. In the last 12 months in my locality they set one crew of private contractors to resurface a stretch of road, a good job was done with minimal disruption as most work was carried out at night. It was a few short weeks before the road was completed. At the same time the local council brigade of badly shaved apes was hauled out to build a traffic island. 2 months later they were still f*cking around with it. Oddly enough this was at the end of the year when the remaining budget was to be spent. Spend if foolishly and you get crap roads, wisely and you get more tourists, business etc.
If Kerry becomes an island though – it won’t need investment in roads – just a bigger airport ..l.o.l. !
they must have took the roads in on account of the recent bad weather
Probably why it’s so beautiful being cut off from the rest of the kip.
And didn’t they recently have a huge bypass in Tralee completed that took about 3 years
Yes but it needs bypasses of adare Newcastle west & abbeyfeale . That tralee bypass was a strange decision considering the need for these N21 improvements
It’s not huge!
What’s that now ……
Ah John, you ruined it before it got going!
It’s not just Kerry, it applies to all the Atlantic coast counties. Our second and third biggest cities Cork and Limerick, are connected by a bog road. Road from Limerick to Kerry is a joke. An awful lot of the ‘western corridor’ road from Derry to Cork is crap. Amazing how they found €281M to get rid of one set of traffic lights left on the ‘Eastern corridor’ from Belfast to Cork at Newlands Cross.
Ya mean €281mil for what is actually designated as European route 1? Fascinating that. Wonder how that happened. Ffs there isn’t even motorway from Dublin to Rosslare and that’s ER1 as well. I don’t know what they spent all those billions on back in the day but there are massively glaring exceptions to where the networks were built. Loads of areas are under served by decent road access but threatening to pass a motion to be declared an island is a farce the likes of which you regularly hear from kerry councillors. Also I’m sick of everyone thinking that just cos Dublin gets something the rest of the country should too. There is a 3rd of the population centralised in the Greater Dublin area travelling to and from Dublin for work etc. There are hundreds of trucks moving to Dublin port and airport everyday as well as in and out of depots and factories. There are well over a million people living and working within a very small area. Now compare the red cow flyover to a bypass in the back arse of kerry travelled by a couple of hundred cars a day. The red cow has a couple of hundred cars an hour. Where should the money be spent to best effect?
Second and third by a long shot though. It’s interesting to look at traffic numbers in this case:
https://www.nratrafficdata.ie/c2/gmapbasic.asp?sgid=ZvyVmXU8jBt9PJE$c7UXt6
The N20 between Cork and Limerick only saw 9,923 AADT in 2013.
In comparison Newland’s Cross saw 78,407
To put it into context busy parts of the M50 saw AADT of 122,207, which is staggeringly more massive than the N20.
So you can see how much more value investment in Dublin adds.
Fair point, but I think there would be a lot more travel between Cork and Limerick if the road was improved. There are many people in Cork who wouldn’t go to events in Limerick because it means sitting in traffic in Buttevant & Charleville.
In other words GIMME GIMME GIMME more of that Dublin money.
Kerry obviously misses the days when Healy-Rae had a gun to the head of the government.
He had a gun to their heads but he never thought to get them some roads did he? Fianna failure were all over Road building getting their buddies a bit of work on roads with bloated contracts for construction and yet he never managed to get a few bypasses built.
Dublin money??
Yes, Dublin. The city where most of the income tax intake comes from. The city with the highest property tax rates too. Kerry is asking us to subsidise them even more than we already do. that’s what this is about.
I say give them their independence. Dublin would be better off.
Kerry attracts huge numbers of tourists to the island, last year €183m in overseas revenue was spent in the county. Visitor numbers and revenue will inevitably fall if the infrastructure is unable to cope with demand. It makes economic sense to look after our tourist areas.
Only a Kerryman would try to swim on land anyway.
Haha!
With the way they talk the poor mouth down there, the rest of the country will be having collections for our poor neighbours
Kerry man standing local supermarket staring at a carton of orange juice for 15 minutes. When asked why,he replied, it says CONCENTRATE.
What a load of nonsense. This is the Cork/Kerry border. Hardly a rubbish road and/or gridlocked. http://goo.gl/xOkuoJ
That is “one” road on the Cork/Kerry border, and only one specific road in Kerry. We have others…
That’s the direct rd from cork city, approaches from north cork and limerick are actually disgraceful.
David, have you travelled this road the section in Cork from Ballyvourney to Macroom? It is a glorified bohereen, Macroom is one long bottle neck, the section from Macroom to Lissarda is another slighly better bohereen.
Regarding the road from Limerick, Adare is a notorious bottleneck with long tailbacks. Newcastlewest and Abbeyfeale can also be disasters to get through!
Try travelling to Cork City behind a tractor or slow moving vehicle on this section of the N22, it could be 15km before you get a chance to pass!
The cities of Cork and Limerick, whose combined population is around 3 times larger than the total population of Kerry have a dirt track connecting them. Galway is still badly in need to a bypass. Dublin desperately needs Dart underground / Metro. This crowd need to realise that they’re way down the list of priorities. Especially when there isn’t any money there to actually build what they want.
All the roads have houses built along their edges and to widen the road would be an infringement of their human rights. Only if they have 5000 billion in compensation will they allow the road to be widened.
So yeah, they can feck off.
Well said. But its the same in much of “rural” Ireland… one-off houses on every turn.
I don’t blame people for wanting one-off housing when the alternative is a gawdy estate look-a-like.
People should have been allowed build their one-offs inside the boundaries of existing towns and villages. To make this affordable the councils should have CPO’d the zoned for residential lands instead of allowing developers with deep pockets pay the ransom demanded by the greedy farmer.
This would have created some beautiful villages and towns instead of the repetitive estate houses on every town and village.
Typical Kerrymen, how could Kerry become an “island” if it’s completely surrounded by the ocean..
*its not
Racist
That isn’t even funny and I don’t mean it in a taking offence to it kinda way, I mean it in a thats the lamest kerry man joke I have ever in my
Life heard, shockingly bad
What do you call a Galwayman sitting on a bag of potatoes ? Top of the pops.
Death to Irish Racism !
Why are people red-thumbing Anthony? It IS a racist joke, unless you’re trying to suggest I’m the same race as Kerry people, which is a disgusting idea.
Ah Pontius, you do love my singing. <3
A Kerry man got the Nobel prize for been outstanding in his own field
I have to have to travel from Cork to Tralee and to Limerick regularly and cant decide which road I like less, both are awful. At least going to Limerick there is the option of cutting across from Mitchelstown, going to Kerry there’s no such alternative (apart from via Mallow which a huge diversion). Macroom to the county bounds, in particular is a national disgrace
I was in Kenmare the other week. It blew me away. Stunning place.
That’s all I’ve got on this news story.
Winning the all island final every year.. Nice.
Guess who builds roads in Kerry
I’ll give you a clue
They were hats !!!!!!!!
It’s wear
I’ll help with the digging.
A Jayes. No kerry. We like you. We’re sorry about the neighbours (Cork) but that’s not our fault. We’ll do our best for you.
Signed: The rest of the country. Except Cork. With kisses and hugs from Dublin.
What are they doing giving out about bypasses? they have 2 major towns, Tralee and Killarney, both bypassed, albeit killarneys can of get gridlocked, there are 4 national roads leading in, 2 from limerick, 1 on the coast which is a beautiful drive on a nice day, and another from abbeyfeale to castleisland, another smaller town which is bypassed with a brand new road, another main road from mallow, and another from cork city.
Cant understand their argument, oh, and incase Kerry Co. Co. werent aware, you are bordered by land, how can you be an island? they wil go to court argue their case, spend god knows how much taxpayers money, lose their case and are now back to square 1, expect next time the state are more pissed off at them.
Having the roads fixed? I’ve never heard of that. Is it a procedure done by the vet to stop them trying to mate with each other? It couldn’t be an Irish thing anyway, unless you’re referring to the piles of grit at the side of the road sons the time of the local elections.
A JCB to dig around the border! Is this one of those bad Kerry jokes?
County Kerry has the best roads in the country. God help them if they travelled around county corks roads… if anyone should be throwing the toys of the pram it should be Cork people!
Yes quite right that European route E-01 is the proper designation for European funding of Irish highways N-1, N-11, and N-50, as is E-20 for the N-7, and none of this meaningless nonsense of the letter M on any Irish roads, along with the overtaxing of vehicles by toll charges. I would like to see a day when the Western Parkway, and Northern and Southern Cross Routes were redesignated as a Freeway, but there has to be a whole culture change in Ireland yet, and a greater willingness to be part of Europe.
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