Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the clarification that the Minister's position is that construction on this scheme is due to start in 2020. There are various dates floating around on it. Cork County Council has been given a date of 2021 or later for the construction of it. TII and Cork County Council, the bodies at the coalface dealing with this on a daily basis, are saying it will be post-2021. Will the Minister sit down with representatives of TII to clarify, and impress on them, that it is a priority for TII that the Macroom bypass is started immediately?

Will the Minister release the bypass to tender for construction because we cannot afford to have it waiting much longer than it is? As outlined earlier, it is a dangerous road on which there have been far too many fatalities. Since the compulsory purchase order, CPO, was made by the Minister more than three years ago, the number of people killed on that road would fill the entire front bench where the Minister is sitting. While I have been a public representative, and in my own area alone, the number of people killed on that road would fill that front bench, the one behind the Minister and the one behind that.

Will the Minister release this road to tender for construction without delay? Even 2020, if one goes by that date, is still a number of years away and one is looking at further danger and further fatalities.

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