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

I thank the Minister for his reply but I am getting no answer to the question I raised. I asked when the Minister of State expected to have the environmental impact study back. When will we have a public consultation? When can we move on with this project? It is 12 years on and we have not made one single step forward on this project. I am frustrated. The fact is the OPW submitted the design to the Department of public expenditure in 2018. It took until 2021 for a decision to be made. There was then a judicial review. An environmental impact study was submitted in 2022. By the time the Department dealt with it in 2023, that environmental impact study was then out of date as a result of the report sitting on someone's desk for 12 months. I do not want that to happen again. As the Minister of State outlined, there are more than 290 properties, which cannot be sold at the moment and where people cannot borrow money to redevelop them. As a result, no development has occurred in that area over the past 13 or 14 years.

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