Park-and-Ride Facilities
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-19
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Mark Wall (LAB), Kildare South

I rise in the Chamber tonight to once again try to get to some solutions to the car park the N7-M7 has become. People are spending their lives in cars. They drive for three hours every morning to work and drive back home for three hours every evening. Some people leave their home at 6.30 a.m. Some leave their home at 5.30 a.m. to try to beat the traffic. They spend an hour or an hour and a half in their work car parks to avail of some time and to try to avoid what is happening on the roads.
I am asking the Minister of State tonight to look at park and ride. We were told the NTA park and ride development had established an office, arising from a recommendation relating to the climate action plan, with a view to advancing strategic park-and-ride facilities to take people out of their private cars and give them a public transport option such as a bus service into the capital. In a recent reply I received, I was told by the NTA that two specific sites have been identified on the M7-M9 corridor – one at Kill, which was to provide 500 parking spaces and one in Naas-Sallins, which was to provide 1,000 parking spaces. The reply goes on to say that the work at Kill was well advanced and was progressing very well until some problems arose with the land developer. That work now seems to have stalled. The reply states the NTA is now working on the Sallins option for 1,000 car parking spaces in and around Sallins train station. In the reply I received, the NTA also stated that it needs to put in enhanced railway infrastructure closer to Dublin city centre to maximise the potential of such a facility but it will go ahead with some design at the Sallins location.
These replies are totally and utterly disheartening because not alone do we need park-and-ride facilities at Sallins and Kill but we also need them at other locations along the M9 in particular. As I came to Dáil Éireann this morning I passed 11 cars parked at the Ballitore interchange, which is a daily occurrence. Normally, we would get up to 20 cars at that location. These are people who are car pooling and going to Dublin who park on the side of the road. It is a similar situation at the Castledermot interchange on the M9 where 20 cars could also be parked. Kildare County Council promised over a long period while I was on it that we would see park-and-ride facilities at these locations but there is no mention in the replies of any facilities at those locations.
We have people spending three hours in their cars each morning. One cannot contemplate the mental torture that is putting on people coming in every day. They are not getting home in time to see their families and they are stuck in traffic every day. The Government seems to be very slow coming up with solutions. The solutions I have been told about in relation to Sallins are now only beginning to progress to a design stage, which means that we are probably years away from having park-and-ride facilities. There is no mention of the Ballitore or Castledermot interchanges. What we need to hear tonight from the Government is that there is progress. We need the Government to deal realistically with the problem. There may have been a meeting in the Department of Transport in recent days and I hope as a result of it that we will get some solutions for all those who are trapped in their cars on the M7 and the M9.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:45+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-19