Commuter Belt

Dermot O'Neill, director of the software consultancy, Topaz Consulting

How do you travel to and from work? By car from Bettystown, Co Meath to Cabinteely in south Dublin.

How long does it take? Between one hour and 10 minutes and two hours and 10 minutes one way. On average, one and a half hours.

What time do you leave home? Usually at about 6.30 a.m.

At what time do you arrive back home? At 8 p.m.

Do you travel the same route every day? No. I vary it depending on roadworks or a build-up of traffic. My typical route is along the N1 to Swords and from there to Kinsealy and on the Malahide Road until Artane. I go through Clontarf, across the East Link bridge, through Sandymount and Blackrock to Cabinteely.

What do you enjoy about your commute? Listening to the radio. The Eamon Dunphy show on Today FM keeps me sane in the evenings and I listen to Ian Dempsey in the mornings. Also, I deliberately take the coastal route because I enjoy travelling along by the sea.

What bothers you most about your commute? Without meaning to sound prudish, the lack of courtesy of other motorists: boy racers who use the hard shoulder to gain an extra 100 yards, or 10 cars in the queue of motorists who move up along the right-hand lane and then indicate to get back into the backed-up left lane to turn left.

Bottlenecks at the junction of the M50 at the Malahide Road annoy me - the system was changed from a roundabout to traffic lights, yet there is still a bottleneck.

Also, it is dangerous where two lanes converge into one because some motorists speed up to pass out trucks before the road narrows.

Would you change your mode of transport if you could? Yes. I'd use the train if there was a reasonable service. But because I work my own hours (I'm not a nine-to-five commuter), I'd have to wait two to three hours in the evening to catch a train home.

How could your journey be improved? If there was car- pooling or more reliable public transport. I have friends who commute by train and do an hour's work on the train. If I could do that, I could leave the office earlier.

In conversation with Sylvia Thompson