Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am seeking confirmation that the N20-M20 road project from Cork to Limerick will proceed with urgency in view of the fact, as reported in The Irish Timesrecently, that 62 people have died on this road in the past 25 years. Between 2016 and 2018, 87 collisions were recorded on the N20, seven of which involved the death of road users, and a further 13 collisions led to serious injuries, with the remaining 67 resulting in minor injuries to road users.

The route of this project was to be announced in September. Even if the route was announced in the morning, we should consider the case of the bypass for Ringaskiddy. Although it was announced in 2014, it took six years before it was finally signed off on as the route. There is huge pressure locally to allow the existing route, especially the stretch from Cork to Mallow, to continue to be used but that it be upgraded and widened.

Bypasses are to be constructed around Mallow, Buttevant and Charleville. A new road will obviously have to be built from Mallow to Charleville because a section of this route is extremely dangerous and not suitable for the volume of traffic that uses it. To give the Minister an idea of this volume of traffic, 25,000 cars pass the section from Waterloo Road and Blarney to Cork City every day. Some 17,000 pass the section around the Mallow area. The figure is the same for the section in the Limerick area. Some 13,000 cars a day use the section from Charleville to Buttevant on what is an old country road.

I will give the Minister an idea of the challenges this presents. There are 625 access points onto the N20. Some 216 of these provide access to fields, 295 to houses and 114 to public roads. That is the challenge faced by anyone travelling on this road. Someone may suddenly decide to turn right and leave the road while one is behind them. There is also the danger of having to cross the path of oncoming traffic.

We face a major challenge. There is a massive volume of traffic comprising both cars and commercial vehicles. As the Minister will know, the Port of Cork has been upgraded and now has additional capacity. We will, therefore, have further commercial freight traffic using this road in the coming years. I ask that this project be prioritised and not postponed again because, if we decide to start in the morning, we will still have a long journey to travel before we turn the first sod on this project.

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