Independent Cllr Christy Hyland hit out at people who have criticised the new N5 Westport to Turlough road project. Speaking at the February meeting of the West Mayo Municipal District, he said: "I will not call it the Westport to Castlebar road, there is talk it is taking five or ten minutes off the journey from Castlebar to Westport; I will say those people are ignorant - it is not a road from Westport to Castlebar. It is a road from the west coast of Mayo, commencing here in Westport and I am asking them to vision that in ten years it will link up with Mullingar and join on the dual carriageway into Dublin.
"I want to put it to bed and ask them to open their eyes and educate themselves, it is a dual carriageway commencing here in the west and hopefully Roscommon and Longford will get their piece done and then we will be able to leave this area in the west and get to the east coast and they get down to us. I think it is absolutely brainless and lacking in vision for people to talk about this road and lacking vision to see where it is going that it is only to cut five or ten minutes off the journey for people in Westport and Castlebar."
