Towards the end of next month, members of the West Kerry Roads Action Group will travel to Brussels to have their petition on the state of roads in the area heard by the European Committee on Petitions.
This has been a long haul for a group of determined local people who have campaigned to force the Government to do something about the awful N86, the stretch of road between Tralee and Dingle.
It takes in Blennerville, Camp, Annascaul and Lispole on the way, and although it is supposed to be a major tourist route, at times it is practically impassable and dangerous.
Ms Brigid O'Connor, spokeswoman for the group, and her colleagues, wanted something done.
They picketed the Dβil, lobbied their TDs and tried to make their case as best they could. Nothing happened, bar some cosmetic work on a stretch of the road.
The group wants to find out where the money earmarked for roads is going and why Kerry, being the fourth largest county, is ranked only 14th in the pecking order for funding.
Last summer the committee informed the group that its petition had been deemed admissible and that information had been sought by the committee from the European Commission.
The group has been told that it will be informed when a date for the hearing has been set and, according to Ms O'Connor, she and the group should be in Brussels by January 23rd next. The issue may be a local one, but it has the potential to cause not a little embarrassment for the Government as the election looms.
The dispersal of funding for roads, particularly Kerry roads, is now going to come under direct scrutiny by the European paymasters, and the Committee on Petitions will hear at first hand how a small community in a peripheral area, known to most people only during the holiday season, has been left largely to its own devices.
"It's amazing what wind of an election will do. All of a sudden, the politicians seem to be very interested in the state of the N86," Ms O'Connor said.