Manager worried for tourists using ‘unsafe’ West Cork road

Cork county manager Martin Riordan is anxious to create more tourist jobs in West Cork — but said he worried about sending strangers down its only long and winding main road because its “unsafe” in many places and the National Roads Authority is not providing significant money to upgrade it.

Mr Riordan is to lobby the roads authority to, at the least, provide money for some overtaking lanes on the N71 to minimise danger and help stimulate the region’s economic growth.

Mr Riordan said the quickest way to create jobs in West Cork was through tourism. But he added he was worried about sending visitors on the N71 — the Cork to Killarney road that passes through Clonakilty, Skibbereen and Bantry — which they did not know and which was “long and in some places unsafe”.