Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As I said at the outset, to be fair, I did not expect the Minister of State to disclose the allocations that are due to be announced in the coming weeks. I am realistic about the question I asked but, at the same time, I am flagging that I specifically asked about the north ring road, as it was formerly called and the Carrigtohill to Midleton stretch in east Cork. I did not ask about the Mallow relief road because I am quite confident about it from the general talk around that scheme and TII's ambitions, commitments and comments, not only in private, but also in the public domain. It is on TII's agenda to be discussed at the transport committee meeting later. I am quite confident that the Mallow scheme will progress. That is great news for the people of Mallow.

The reason I specifically raised the northern distributor road or north ring road and the Carrigtohill to Midleton stretch is that I genuinely have a fear they will not progress. I have made that clear to the Tánaiste and to the Minister for Finance in my party. As I said in my opening statement, it is quite difficult when there is a massive infrastructural project such as the Dunkettle Interchange with all the traffic that feeds into it. From the eastern side, 120,000 traffic movements a day come through Carrigtohill on the specific stretch of road I am referring to and that feeds directly into the interchange. It takes a lot of the traffic from the Waterford direction into the city and south of the county. For that not to progress and for the Dunkettle Interchange to be operational makes no sense.

I would say the same about the northern distributor road. Much of that scheme is about installing bus lanes, cycle lanes, safety measures and all so on. There are probably projects in the Minister of State's county that are stalled or not progressing. It is up to her whether she wants to comment on them. However, for a piece of infrastructure that would benefit everyone potentially not to progress-----

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