Tractors can't cross road safely at Tirlán premises in Laois, says local councillors

Tractors cannot safely cross the road at Tirlán in Crettyard due to traffic travelling at high speeds, local councillors have warned.

The issue with speed along the N78 outside Tirlán FarmLife has been brought to the attention of Laois County Council on multiple occasions, local councillors Ben Brennan, Aisling Moran and Padraig Fleming have argued.

Cllr Ben Brennan raised the motion that Laois County Council contact TII in an effort to install safety measures on the road at the January meeting of the Portarlington / Graiguecullen MD.

Cllr Brennan told the council that tractors and slow moving vehicles leaving the depot cannot cross the road safely with cars travelling between "120km/h and 130km/h."

He said: "Traffic has to be slowed down. Bring down the speed. There's no other way to solve that problem."

Executive Engineer, Tom Drennan, told Cllr Brennan that Road Design have contacted TII about the location as it was raised previously. 

He added that TII notified Laois County Council that they would be installing W170 hazard signs on the road. Drennan noted: "Laois County Council will liaise with TII and assess any other safety measures that may be installed."

Cllr Brennan argued W170 hazard signs, which are simply yellow signs with an exclamation mark, will not sufficiently address the problem, saying: "The answer is not much good to the people down there."

He, along with Cllr Aisling Moran, also denounced the lack of cooperation from TII: "It's the same thing every time we put in a motion here, it's the same answer the whole time - TII."

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Voicing her frustration with the situation, Cllr Moran said: "The speed zone needs to be changed but we might as well be banging our heads off a brick wall as talking to TII."

She noted that TII agreed to meet with a delegation of Laois councillors to discuss works in the county back in October 2025, however they have yet to hear word on a date for the meeting.

In regards to the N78, the Independent councillor pushed: "We need to put pressure on them because that speed zone needs to go down."

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme