Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It is a sightly complicated greenway. It is different from some of the others. I understand that Meath County Council is progressing the greenway as a joint greenway and river navigation restoration project. We are only responsible for the greenway part. However, the council put the schemes together, which makes it slightly complicated and different from other greenway projects. My Department and TII have no role in respect of the river navigation aspect. Questions on that issue will have to be directed to Meath County Council.

That said, we need to start looking at greenway projects as the significant infrastructure projects that they are. They must follow the same public spending code and project management guidelines as roads and hospital projects and, therefore, progress can, unfortunately, seem slower than anticipated. However, progress is being made on this important project. The Boyne Valley greenway was granted funding by my Department in July 2020 under the carbon tax funding and received the highest allocation from the €4.5 million fund. It received €750,000 towards this project. TII has allocated €100,000 towards progressing this project in 2022. The total spend to date since this project was initially funded is €739,559.

TII is now responsible for the management of greenway projects and I understand that Meath County Council issued a draft phase 2 options selection report to TII in May this year. TII has, as normal, carried out a peer review of this report and raised several queries with the local authority. I am informed that a response is being prepared by the local authority and will be issued to TII shortly. TII expects that the emerging preferred option for the greenway will be published by the local authority in quarter 4 this year. It is likely that the phase 2 gate review process will not be completed until early 2023.

At this stage it is not possible to give an indication of when the greenway will complete construction, given the steps needed to be taken and the uncertain timeline for planning approval.

See this speech in context