Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister knows, master plans for the north fringe of the Dublin City Council area and the adjoining south fringe of the Fingal County Council area were first drafted around 15 years ago by the planning departments of the two councils and a new urban district of 10,000 to 15,000 people and ancillary commercial development was planned, providing for a future population of 40,000 plus. Unfortunately the crash of 2008 brought much of the development to a halt and the discovery of high pyrite levels in foundation infills and insulation and other construction problems have greatly delayed the much-needed completion of the core of the north fringe.

The spine of the new city region is a main street or boulevard running from Clare Hall-Burnell on Malahide Road, Dublin 17 across Belmayne, Priory Hall and Clongriffin to Clongriffin town centre, which is alongside the planned town centre in the coast development of Fingal's south fringe. A number of key road improvements are a prerequisite for the development of this master plan for the north fringe-south fringe district. These include the Hole-in-the-Wall Road-Moyne Road improvement scheme now being addressed by Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council, the proposed Northern Parkway strongly linking the Dublin city and Fingal parts of this region and finally, and most importantly, the Malahide Road re-alignment or bypass at Clare Hall-Burnell which is a joint project of Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council.

The Malahide Road re-alignment was a key roads improvement objective in the 2005-11 Dublin city development plan, which I helped design. Dublin City Council road design and construction engineers and the north central area management teams held widespread consultation on this project, especially with Fingal colleagues, and produced detailed plans for the proposed re-alignment. Traffic on the very busy Malahide Road was to be diverted to the west at Darndale Belcamp and over a new bridge and across the N32, now known as the R139, through Belcamp College lands and then moving back eastwards to re-join the Malahide Road near the Moyne Road junction. In the Dublin city development plan 2011 to 2017 at section 5.1.4.8 under "Road Capacity Improvements" the construction of the Malahide Road re-alignment is named as a key objective. The re-alignment's importance is underlined in many reports since 2008 to the north central committee of Dublin City Council and to the North Fringe Forum, a residents' and stakeholders' group which meets quarterly to review progress on the north-south fringe.

At our recent north-fringe forum, which took place on Tuesday last, the north central area manager, Mr. Dave Dinnigan, highlighted efforts by Dublin City Council to encourage well planned development at a key site on the junction of the Malahide Road - R139 - and Clare Hall Avenue. This is the site of Clare Hall town centre and an earlier effort by the local authority to develop the centre was stymied by the withdrawal and collapse of Stanley builders. However, the critical public infrastructure necessary to create the environment of the new Clare Hall town centre is the urgent funding and construction of the Malahide Road bypass or realignment. The bypass will take the considerable north-south traffic out of the location and, with other measures to ease the east-west traffic flows, would permit a true urban retail and services centre to develop where the Tesco Clare Hall shopping centre and the Hilton hotel are the flagships of a commercial development at present.

The last detailed report we received from DCC engineers put a cost of €50 million on the project a couple of years ago, but as a key measure to enable the sustainable completion of the north fringe-south fringe region, capital expenditure on this realignment would be a valuable investment. Many thousands of new homes, services and businesses are needed in the region and, in addition to addressing our catastrophic housing crisis, this road investment would be a significant boost to the public infrastructure needed to complete the north-fringe urban region. I urge the Minister to ensure the National Transport Authority makes the project a priority for the 2016 capital programme.

I noted the Minister's recent announcements. Incidentally, I hope his recent reconsideration of metro north is not merely a general election ploy and he is sincere about this. As the Acting Chairman, Deputy Farrell, will be aware, it would be devastating for the north side if the Minister, who himself is one of our region's Deputies, dangles this carrot in front of us and then does not help to follow through on it. I hope that reconsideration is real. In the announcements, there are many important road improvements. I note the N11 New Ross bypass and the road connecting Sligo and Donegal - the north-west region - and I am a strong supporter of all those. However, for our region, and I think the Acting Chairman would support this 100%, we should do the Malahide Road realignment.

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