{"id":331792,"date":"2026-03-06T09:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T09:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331792\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T09:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T09:24:08","slug":"woman-left-job-due-to-three-hour-commute-on-n7-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331792\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman left job due to three-hour commute on N7 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman has said she quit her job in Dublin<\/a> because she was leaving her home in Co Kildare<\/a> three hours before work in order to arrive on time and secure parking. <\/p>\n

Deirdre Gowran (49), from Rathangan, was working in a senior administration role at Crumlin Children\u2019s Hospital<\/a> before she left in June 2024. <\/p>\n

Gowran said she would leave her home at 5.30am to ensure she was on time and could secure parking before she started at 8.30am, travelling along the M7 and N7. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was ridiculous,\u201d she says. \u201cI would leave so early to avoid being late, I\u2019d rather be early than a minute late. Coming home in the evening would be anything up to two hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was spending the same amount of time on my commute<\/a> as I was physically in the job.\u201d <\/p>\n

Gowran said the commute and rising traffic levels were the \u201cmain factor\u201d in her deciding to leave the post for a similar position at Peamount Healthcare in Newcastle, Co Dublin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t deal with the traffic. I just couldn\u2019t physically do that drive any more,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would have stayed on in Crumlin. I was also getting over long Covid and a lot of it was joint pain. It would also cause a lot of anxiety in terms of the thoughts of getting in the car and having to drive into Dublin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gowran says her current commute along the M7 and N7 can range from 40 minutes without traffic but up to an hour and a half if there is congestion. <\/p>\n

\"DeirdreDeirdre Gowran says there should be Government incentives for people to car pool. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

\u201cI would say there is between 50 and 60 per cent more traffic on the N7 over recent months,\u201d she says. \u201cThere used to be a quiet time on the N7 but not any more. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know whether that is people returning to the office or maybe more students are driving where they would have used public transport before.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the secondary roads are also being used and they\u2019re getting backlogged. It\u2019s having a knock-on effect on all the little villages.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue of traffic congestion, in particular delays on the M50 and M7\/N7, has been raised continuously by commuters, politicians and transport experts recently. <\/p>\n

Minister for Transport Darragh O\u2019Brien<\/a> will chair a forum of stakeholders later this month focused on addressing congestion in the Greater Dublin Area. <\/p>\n

Attendees are due to include the National Transport Authority, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, Dublin Bus, GoAhead Ireland, Bus \u00c9ireann, Irish Rail, An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na, the four Dublin local authorities, the Department of Transport and the Department of Justice. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien said congestion is a \u201creal and pressing issue\u201d and there needs to be \u201ca fresh look\u201d at what more can be done to ease the pressure on roads.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The 3.5-hour, 35km commute: Kildare motorists on their M7 traffic \u2018nightmare\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Two memos \u2013 the Moving Together strategy and Sustainable Mobility Policy Action Plan \u2013 were also brought to Cabinet this week aimed at tackling congestion and transport-related air pollution in urban areas and supporting the delivery of over 40 transport-related commitments in the programme for government. <\/p>\n

Gowran says there should be Government incentives for people to car pool and examine whether community hubs could be established outside of the capital for civil servants to work. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were kind of encouraged to live outside of Dublin and to commute. Now some people are spending longer on their commute than they are in the office. My heart breaks for them,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey must be wrecked before they even start up a computer. It\u2019s really tough on them. Employers have to be far more aware of what their employees are going through to turn up and do a good job.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman has said she quit her job in Dublin because she was leaving her home in Co…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,102173,102174,15910,631,61,60,3770,3011],"class_list":["post-331792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-commuter-belt","tag-commuter-counties","tag-darragh-o-brien","tag-for-you","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kildare","tag-traffic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}