Frustration at lack of progress to slow speeders at Laois village

A Councillor expressed frustration at the lack of progress on safety measures to slow speeding traffic through a Laois village.  

Cllr Ben Brennan put down a motion in relation to speeding at Killeshin at the latest meeting of Portarlington Graiguecullen Municipal District.  

He asked: “That Laois County Council put in place safety measures on the road into Killeshin as the control on the speed of the traffic going through the village is limited.”

In a written response, Senior Engineer Adrian Barrett said: “The Road Design office will arrange to meet with Cllr Brennan on site to assess the problem and identify a solution.”

“There we are again, back to square one,” Cllr Brennan said on hearing the response.  

“That’s going on for the last four or five years. There’s a school there with over 400 kids in it. Now the GAA ground is going into that and a soccer club is going into there. You have a community centre at the back of it with a number of businesses,” Cllr Brennan said. 

“We haven’t even a pedestrian crossing on it and I am asking for years to get some safety measures in there,” he remarked. 

“All I get in answer is road design,” Cllr Brennan said in frustration. 

The motion was seconded by Cllr Padraig Fleming and supported by Cllr Aisling Moran. 

“There has to be some way of slowing down that traffic,” she said. 

Cllr Aidan Mullins noted “Cllr Brennan has raised this on numerous occasions.” He said it appeared there was a standard prepared reply and said for something as serious as this it really should get attention. 

Cllr Paschal McEvoy agreed with Cllr Mullins.  “Where there is schools and children involved we need to be ahead of the possy,” he said.