Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The two things I would ask Mr. Llewellyn to do are as follows. I am a Deputy for Limerick city and my colleagues have already made reference to the N20-M20 project. Mr. Llewellyn is probably aware there are no motorways or dual carriageways between Cork and Limerick as there are between Cork and Dublin, Limerick and Dublin, Limerick and Galway and Galway and Dublin. Limerick and Cork are the two largest cities outside of Dublin but they are not linked by motorway. The distance is roughly 90 km and there is no hard shoulder on 42% of it. I would encourage Mr. Llewellyn to read The Irish Timesarticle, which we might send on to him, which suggests that 60 people have been killed on that route in the past 25 years and it is four times more likely to have fatalities than the average road in Ireland. There are a huge number of access points along the route, with something like 625 access points. I welcome that Mr. Llewellyn has already made reference to the fact it is continuing to go through a process through TII. I welcome that he sees a role for motorways and roads in addition to rail and other forms of transport, as there will always be need for that.

If Mr. Llewellyn gets the opportunity to come to Ireland, I ask him to drive the route and see at first hand what it entails. From Limerick city, there is dual carriageway for about 10 km and that is already motorway. The road then goes into Patrickswell as far as Croom and there it is a normal national road with a hard shoulder. From Croom to Charleville, the road has no hard shoulder for roughly 12 to 15 km. From Charleville to Buttevant, it is an ordinary road with a hard shoulder, although there is a difficulty with Buttevant as there is a quarry there and it needs a major bypass. The road then continues on to Mallow and then to Cork. I am a great believer in seeing it in person rather than just in the abstract. I would encourage Mr. Llewellyn to drive it when he is in Ireland next. I assume he will be looking to do that as part of his role.

It is the biggest single project in Ireland. It is something I passionately believe in given the fatalities as well as the issue of connecting the two cities. Does Mr. Llewellyn think he will get the opportunity to drive the route?