James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

With regard to the Cobh access road, it is important to take the opportunity to acknowledge that project. The existing infrastructure to access Great Island and the town of Cobh is utterly under-resourced. It is not up to scratch, and the council will say that. The engineers who have been looking at this for the past number of years will also say it. A significant amount of funding is required to deal with that issue. There is a requirement for that to be contained in the NDP because the project will come in at well over €20 million. This is always the stumbling block with every civil servant I have engaged with at national level when it comes to getting funding for projects. I take this opportunity to reiterate that the people of Cobh need the infrastructure. Belvelly Bridge, which the Minister is familiar with, is not capable of handling the current levels of traffic. If anything happens on Fota Road, the island is completely cut off. That has occurred previously. It is very dangerous and must be addressed.

See this speech in context