A number of motorists have complained about the traffic plan for the National Ploughing Championships after encountering significant delays on Tuesday.
Thousands of people descended on Ratheniska just outside Portlaoise, Co Laois, this morning for the first Ploughing Championships open to the public in three years following Covid disruption in 2020 and 2021.
While gardaí released a detailed traffic plan prior to the event with coloured routes from various parts of the country, many attendees still ran into gridlock.
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One regular attendee took to Twitter to post of photograph of the traffic tailback he encountered on the route from the west of the country.
He said: "Absolute nightmare trying to get there. The designated traffic route from the west is certainly not fit for purpose and way off the standard of previous years sadly." he accompanied his tweet with #carparkinthemiddleonowhere.
Replies from others travelling from other parts of the countries revealed similar problems on other routes.
Another said: "The way from southeast/ Carlow was fine till Timahoe. Been sitting for last 25 mins
Another said the yellow route was the same while a third commenter claimed, "Grey route also a total mess - not moving at all."
An Garda Síochána has said it has a significant operation in place for the National Ploughing Championships taking place from Tuesday to Thursday. They have asked people attending by car to ignore Google Maps and Sat Navs and instead follow their coloured routes to the mammoth site.
"With an anticipated in excess of 80,000 persons attending this event each day a traffic management and parking plan has been put in place," gardaí explained.
They said "the assistance of all road users is required to allow traffic to move freely to and from the event during these times."
Explaining access to the area, they added: "Gardaí are urging road users not attending the National Ploughing Championships to avoid the N80 at Stradbally and all approach roads to Ratheniska village from Tuesday at 6am to Thursday at 8pm.
"For those attending the National Ploughing Championships, please view in the advance the Traffic Management Plan on Garda.ie or NPA.ie for the correct route to take depending on where you are travelling from."
The Garda plan includes an interactive map which can be viewed on any internet-enabled device.
The map identifies various routes that attendees should use depending on where their journey commences and a written description and video information of their coloured route.
Meanwhile, Labour TD Ivana Bacik avoided the traffic chaos by taking a train to Portlaoise. She tweeted about her journey on "the great Irish Rail service."
Shuttle buses are being laid on all week to transport from the station to the site in Ratheniska. People are encouraged to use public transport where possible.
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