David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle's office for selecting this matter and the Minister of State, Deputy James Browne, for being here to respond to this issue regarding the N25 between Midleton and Carrigtwohill.

This particular stretch of road is one of the busiest in the country. There are 30,000 vehicle movements per day on it. It is also extremely dangerous and the local authority is worried about the danger posed by this road. There are medians on it, grade junctions and residences going straight onto the road. It is bumper-to-bumper traffic at 100 km/h and 30,000 vehicles per day. That is the first point: the issue of safety and lives being put at risk. There have been a number of accidents on that road already.

The second point I want to make on why this road should be upgraded is that there is a very large industrial site on the roadway at Ballyadam that has been lying idle for the past 12 years. Amgen was to go in there 12 years ago. That did not happen. It has been lying idle for 12 years now and it is fully serviced. It is one of the few sites in the Munster region of this scale and size, but it cannot be used because the road network is totally inadequate. If you exit the site, you have to go down to Midleton to come back to Carrigtwohill. The head of IDA Ireland, Mr. Martin Shanahan, was in with us last week at the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment and he agreed with me this is a major problem. Therefore, there are jobs now going begging because of this road as well.

The third reason is we all know there is a housing crisis. There is a plan that has been worked on for quite a number of years and is quite advanced to build 5,000 houses in the area. That is now at risk. The Minister of State can imagine that number of houses. Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, has objected to planning applications that have been lodged because the road is inadequate.

We have a situation where we have a very unsafe road, we have a very large industrial site lying idle for 12 years, and we now have thousands of houses being put at risk and being objected to by TII because the Department is refusing to fund the road.

Consultants were appointed to carry out feasibility studies on this on 21 January 2020. I think Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan was the mayor at the time. A lot of work has been done. There has been €1.3 million spent on this feasibility study. That is now at risk. That is gone. By the time this comes back again, all that work might have to start again. There have been two sets of public consultations. They were about to announce the preferred route and start on the compulsory purchase order, CPO, and they were told there was no more money and to stop everything.

A total of €100 million has been expended already on the industrial site I spoke about. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has spent €4.5 million on the housing. All this is now at risk and there has been no explanation. I wrote to the Minister for Transport, Deputy Ryan, about a month ago. I did not get an acknowledgement or a response, which I am very disappointed about.

This is extremely serious for our area. There are lives, safety, jobs and housing at risk. I would like to know why this is happening. The Minister of State has come in to address this matter and I thank him for being here. The local authority officials are completely flummoxed because they put a pile of work into this over the past four years. The county councillors are worried about it and I am very concerned about life and limb and safety on this road. There have been a number of fatal accidents on it already. Given the speed of the traffic, the way the road junctions are arranged is lethal. There will be a pile-up some evening and there will be many people killed.

This work is well advanced. A great deal of money has been spent. That money will now go to waste unless the Minister changes his mind, engages on this and allows the next phase to go ahead, which is to announce the preferred route and start the CPO process. That will not cost a whole lot of money. Let us move the project on and, eventually, maybe in four or five years' time, we might see some work there. My worry now is nothing might happen for another ten years.

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