Maynooth parents demand "immediate action" from Kildare County Council over "dangerous" road

Parents are demanding Kildare County Council take “immediate action” over the “dangerous” conditions of footpaths on the R405 Celbridge Road outside Gaelscoil Ui Fhiaich and Maynooth Educate Together National School.

Up to 300 parents and children held a public protest outside the two primary schools in Maynooth on Friday 6 December, over issues with road safety in the area.

They are also requesting that the speed limit on the road be changed from 50kph to 30kph due to speeding traffic.

The schools cater for over 870 children between the ages of 4 and 13 years, with Principal of Maynooth Educate Together National School, Lorraine Murray saying it's only a matter of time before a fatality occurs at the location.

Ms. Murray said on Friday: “Basically it's about the safety of the road and the footpaths along the Celbridge Road, just on the way to the schools.

"So there's two schools there, our school, Maynooth Educate Together National School and Gaelscoil Ui Fhiaich across the road.

“The footpaths are extremely narrow and they're also really badly surfaced. So what's happening is any pedestrians that are using that or cyclists, it's very narrow and it's dangerous, and people are having to step off the footpath on the the oncoming traffic if someone comes and meets them from the opposite direction.

“That's one issue, the second issue is the speed on the road, there's no lollipop lady there so we're looking for a reduction from 50kph to 30kph.”

Ms Murray says there are also accessibility concerns for wheelchair users and on the footpath for the Maynooth Educate Together side, hedging is obstructing pedestrians.

She pointed out that a new estate is also being built on that side of the road, which is attracting heavy construction machinery.

She said: “The protest went really good, really good turnout, so it started there at eight o'clock and finished at nine o'clock.

“So it was a really excellent turnout, we had parents from both schools and children from both schools. We had some local councillors, we had (Deputy) Naoise O'Cearúil, (Cllr) Peter Melrose, and we had (Cllr) Tim Durkan.

“It was a peaceful protest, but I suppose this has been going on for 10 years, it's not a new ask from the council.”

According to Ms. Murray, the campaign was first started by concerned parent Rachel Grimes-Doyle, whose daughter was involved in a 'near-miss' outside the schools a number of years ago.

Ms Murray said the addition of a lollipop lady at the location – the schools currently have none – would help alleviate the problem as a short-term measure, but the council will not fund this.

She said: “Councillors have been working with us for a number of years, but they've brought as much pressure as they can, but I suppose it's just the funding is the issue, and it's not being prioritised.

“There's a fear that there's going to be a fatal accident on that road, and I don't know how it hasn't happened already.”

Maynooth councillor Tim Durkan (FG), who attended Friday's protest, also raised a motion in a recent Clane-Maynooth municipal district committee meeting.

He said: “It's a call to action really at this point in time, it's been going on for 10 years and since I've been on the council I've put forward countless motions in relation to it.

“It's kind of flip-flopping back and forth between the council and the NTA. The last report I received was this morning, but the one before it, essentially there's a scoring mechanism for projects and route selection, and of course this was the project that didn't score the highest and was the one that was most costly.

“That didn't help, and it's with an engineering group at the moment finalising their part of it and they're going to possibly go to public consultation early next year but it seems to be the same answer, just change the dates.”