A new relief road and bridge designed to reduce traffic congestion in Carlow were opened yesterday by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey.
The northern relief road and Bill Duggan bridge will take east-west traffic away from Carlow town centre and help relieve what the Minister called a "significant bottleneck" on the N80.
The £10 million project involved the construction of three km of roadway on the Laois side of the river Barrow and a new bridge over the river at Strawhall, as well as the upgrading of approach roads on the Carlow side.
Campaigners against a proposed major bypass of the town want the ring road extended to cater for traffic on the Dublin/Waterford/Kilkenny route.
A local parish priest, Father John Fingleton, claims the proposed N9 bypass is unnecessary and would have damaging social consequences.
Members of the Bennekerry/Tinryland bypass action committee, who say their parishes would be split in two by the bypass, staged a demonstration at yesterday's opening.
"We welcome the opening of the new bridge but we feel our concerns are not being addressed," said a spokesman, Mr P.J. Hickson.
A separate protest was staged by Mr Leonard Hanley, a local businessman whose family lives beside the new bridge. Mr Hanley, who succeeded in drowning out some of the opening ceremony by playing music over a loud-hailer, said the bridge had been built within 10 yards of his home and his request for a rearrangement of garden levels to secure some privacy had been refused.
Motorists, however, will welcome the fact that traffic on the Dublin-Waterford route will no longer converge in the town with vehicles using the N80.
Mr Dempsey said the need for the project could be gauged by the fact that traffic volumes at Graiguecullen bridge on the N80 currently averaged 16,000 vehicles a day, causing major delays at peak times.
The road and bridge would be a big boost to the economic development of the region, he said. It would also reduce traffic noise and emissions in the town "and so give more of Carlow back to the people who live and work there".
It would also improve access to the sugar factory during the beet campaign.
