Dáil debates
Thursday, 9 February 2023
Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate
Road Projects
7:35 pm
David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle's office for selecting this matter. I also thank the Minister of State for attending. While she is not a Minister in the Department of Transport, it is great she is here.
I have raised a number of times the need to upgrade the N25 between Carrigtwohill and Midleton, County Cork, and will continue to do so. The House just debated housing. The good news is that there are plans to build over 2,500 housing units just outside Midleton. The process is well under way and planning applications have been made, or are in the process of being made, for some of them. Some of the developers are going ahead and it is looking good. However, I have looked through the traffic and transportation assessments made in respect of three projects and which the council has also done. They all state that the N25 road needs upgrading. One assessment states, for example, that the existing junctions will be operating above capacity and will require upgrading. An analysis shows that the junction can accommodate the proposed phase 1 but, after that, it will be at its limit and further development would be reliant on a Cork County Council infrastructure upgrade. Another assessment states the interchange would be unable to accommodate future planned population growth unless road infrastructure improvements are implemented, and so on.
Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, has stated that the proposed development shall be undertaken strictly in accordance with the recommendations of the transport assessment. The transport assessment states the road need upgrading. My concern is that this housing development could be put at risk unless the road is upgraded.
There were plans afoot for, and €1.3 million was spent on, the Midleton to Carrigtwohill road scheme. The first public consultation was held in October 2020 and the option selection process went ahead after that. The public consultation presented feasible options for developing the scheme within the defined study area. That was on display from July 2021 to September 2021. However, the plug was pulled on the entire project in December 2021. I have been raising this matter consistently.
I have just come from a select committee meeting with the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Coveney, at which we spoke about an unbelievable IDA Ireland-owned site beside the N25. It is fully service and has been idle for the past 15 years. It covers 133 acres, with water and sewage services provided at great expense to the taxpayer all those years ago, but cannot be used because the road infrastructure is not adequate. IDA Ireland tells us the reason the site is not used is that the road is inadequate. The agency has people looking for sites like this one but they cannot locate at this site for that reason. The Minister indicated that if a developer or project were to appear on the horizon, the State would move in and do the road.
Much work has already been done on this road and a lot of money has been spent. Why stop it now? Why not just continue? Even with the best will in the world, it will take a number of years before we see shovels in the ground because land has to undergo compulsory purchase orders and people have to apply for planning permissions and all kinds of other things. The plug was pulled halfway through.
The other major issue that concerns me is that this road is extremely busy. There are 30,000 vehicle movements a day on it that move very quickly. I have written to Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII. It agrees with me that there are serious safety worries regarding this road and it talked about addressing them. If it is to do so, it will cost an awful lot of money to make the road safe. The answer is to proceed with the original plan, build the other road that was proposed, take away my concerns with respect to the housing development, open up the IDA site, which will have investment, and make the road safe.
I raised this matter with the former Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, and he did not disagree with me. He was there when Amgen came to Ireland and planned to build a major factory employing 1,100 people a long time ago. I want to hear what the Minister of State says regarding this matter.
7:45 pm
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. This is an issue he has raised many times. I am glad to speak to him about it. When we consider that part of the country, there is a capacity for development, as the Deputy said, and not only because of the IDA site. There is a strategic opportunity for that part of the country having regard to offshore wind, for example, and the transport of turbines from Rosslare Port and other ports along the south coast to the south west, where our most extraordinary strategic advantage as an island nation happens to be. To develop wind energy would secure our energy sustainability, allow us to export energy and deliver 12-month-per-year jobs right up the western seaboard, with technicians and others working there to support offshore wind activity. Not only is a project like this entirely in line with Project Ireland 2040, it also supports the development of an IDA-owned site at a time when we are constantly looking for further development. It is also part of the strategic development of the State's physical infrastructure into the next two decades and how we provide for our economic, energy and employment sustainability throughout the south west.
There are so many other benefits to this proposed project. It would connect Cork and Rosslare much better and directly benefit the towns of Carrigtwohill and Midleton, which the Deputy is much more familiar with than me. The improvement to the network would enable more reliable journey times, still support, as I said, the strategic development of the south-west region and facilitate economic and commercial growth. The proposed project includes the possibility of developing the existing route for the benefit of local residents through the provision of new cycling and walking facilities, which clearly would promote physical activity in the area. By removing traffic from the existing route, road users would benefit from reduced journey times, certainty and improved road safety, as the Deputy outlined. It would also offer better connections for active travel and public transport.
As the Deputy is aware, due to the fact that the greater portion of national development plan, NDP, funding becomes available in the second half of the decade, there is a constraint on the funding available for new projects this year. Most national road projects in the NDP were progressed in 2022 but projects such as the N25, which did not have the required funding to progress in 2022, remain part of the NDP and will be considered for funding in subsequent years. Allocations for projects in 2023 are in the process of being finalised and will be announced in the near future.
On the current status of the N25 Carrigtwohill to Midleton road, as the Deputy is aware, technical advisors have completed their assessments of the route options and determined a preferred solution. Improvements to crossings over this very busy section of the N25 to enhance active travel, I am told, are being considered as part of the scheme. The Deputy referenced some of those safety improvements. TII was unable to provide an allocation for that project in 2022, given the level of funding available for major roads projects. As a result, progression of the project to design and development of the business case for decision gate 1 under the public spending code was not possible last year. The delivery programme for the project will be kept under review and considered in terms of the overall funding envelope available to TII.
I suggest that considering the overall strategic development of the south west, and the very urgent safety issues the Deputy highlighted, the project should be progressed.
David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for her encouraging response. I am very grateful for that. As I said, we need housing badly. I am concerned that the delay in upgrading this roadway could put many of these houses at risk. That is very important.
This site is bounded by a rail link at one end and a dual carriageway on the other side. There is an airport that is not so far away at only 20 minutes, a seaport, two universities and, if the housing goes ahead, plenty of houses. It also has water and wastewater facilities from the time when Amgen was there, power, is dead level and is laid out with roads internally. It is ready to go. If the IDA manages to encourage a developer or industry to move to the site shortly, and it arrives but finds it cannot use this site - I understand this has happened a few times already - because road construction is not up to standard, will the State then move on it? Is that what it will take? It is a little like the Kerry Group headquarters that is down the road, which had to put road construction in place in order to make it happen. It is a chicken and egg situation. My argument is that we should move on this. Work has already gone on. There are also people living on this corridor who own land and houses. They cannot sell the land or houses because they are, in effect, frozen until a final decision is made.
We also have the Celtic Interconnector, where we are linking with France. That particular cable is coming under the sea and roadway and is landing on this site. I suggested to EirGrid a while ago that it put its converter station on the site, which it is doing. The site will also have that kind of power plus a very powerful Internet connection that will go along with that. This makes the site extraordinarily attractive but it has been sitting there for 15 years. As I said, housing is at risk and the road is not safe. It is very dangerous. I call on the TII, if it is listening, to get its act together and put some interim works in place, as it promised me it would a year ago, to make that road safer. My worry is there will be a pile-up someday and there will be loss of life.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for outlining the strategic benefits of this project. I work with the IDA in my role as the Minister of State with responsibility for financial services. I have a very strong interest in making sure sites are available and ready throughout the island. The Ireland for finance strategy has a very strong regional focus and it is very important to me that suitable sites are available. It would be a matter of embarrassment to bring somebody to a green field with no road. I certainly hope that will not persist and that TII is listening, even on a Thursday evening, to a debate in the House to hear the case the Deputy had repeatedly made for the development of this road.
Again, if we are to be strategic about the development of this island, concentrating on facilities, planning, the grid infrastructure network the Deputy described, the interconnector network, the roads network and the planning for ports in respect of the development of offshore wind in the Atlantic, the opportunity that gives us in sustainability and jobs into the future is quite extraordinary. Every single part of the State needs to be alive and awake to that, and to make plans for it. It seems to me TII is as responsible as any other entity in regard to its own planning. It would appear from the advocacy the Deputy made regarding the road, that this project fits in in every possible way. I certainly hope it progresses.