Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Healy Eames for raising this matter. I am taking this Adjournment debate on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Paschal Donohoe.

The proposed Dublin to Galway national greenway is an ambitious plan to develop a 280 km dedicated cycle route that will meander through the towns and villages of Ireland's heartland while offering a unique connection between these two coastal cities. Planning for the proposed Dublin to Galway cycle route is currently being carried out by the National Roads Authority, NRA and the National Transport Authority, NTA, with planning approval now in place for the entirety of the route between Maynooth and Athlone. The NTA is responsible for the provision of cycling infrastructure in the greater Dublin area and is therefore proceeding with the planning of the Dublin city centre to Maynooth section of the proposed route. The Royal Canal is the intended route for this section of the cycle way. A section of the route from Ashtown to Castleknock was opened earlier this year with funding from the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the NTA.

The NRA is currently undertaking detailed route alignment and design work for the Maynooth to Galway section of the route. The Royal Canal tow path is the selected route for the section of the facility between Maynooth and Mullingar. The section from the Meath-Westmealh county boundary to Mullingar is complete and a further section along a disused rail line from Mullingar to Athlone received €4 million funding under the Government's stimulus package in May this year. The preferred route corridor has been selected from Athlone to Galway. It is anticipated that this section of the route will pass through Shannonbridge, Loughrea, Craughwell, Clarinbridge and Oranmore and will run along the coast into Galway. It is proposed to use State-owned lands where feasible; for example, lands owned by Bord na Mona and Coillte. In terms of the design of the route, the first stage of public consultation has been completed. While the Minister understands that there has been a negative response from certain landowners along pockets of the route corridor between Galway and Ballinasloe, there is no doubt that Galway County Council will make every effort to evaluate the feedback and refine the route corridor to ensure that all possible alternatives are considered.

On the general issue of access to land for cycle ways, it is long recognised that using publicly-owned land is advantageous from the perspective of reducing overall capital costs. The proposed Dublin to Galway greenway is already maximising this option with the development of the route along the Royal Canal from Dublin to Mullingar and then along a disused railway line between Mullingar to Athlone. The route west from Athlone, however, does not present this level of opportunity for the most part. As a result, it was necessary to make a decision to use permissive access or CPO to finalise the design of the greenway. There are valid arguments for both these options and the Minister certainly recognises the value of negotiated permissive access from the perspective of cost and community ownership. However, for projects of scale like the Galway to Dublin greenway, the process of obtaining permissive access would be administratively cumbersome and resource demanding. More significantly, it would offer no security of investment from the perspective of the State. In such a situation, any landowner could withdraw access, as is his or her right, to the greenway at any time, post-construction. This would be a very precarious situation from the State's perspective and would offer little security in terms of public monies. Therefore, the Minister thinks it was a prudent decision, in order to maximise the potential of these large scale greenways, to develop such infrastructure using CPO. While the Minister fully appreciates the anxieties that go hand-in-hand with this approach he does not think the challenges are insurmountable.

Regarding the Senator's point about an appeals process, the usual CPO mechanisms will apply whereby arbitration is used to finalise pricing. The Minister further understands that the NRA will be aiming, as much as possible, to route the greenway through the lands of landowners who are willing to co-operate with the scheme. Ultimately, it will be a matter for all developers of cycling infrastructure to consider access on a case-by-case basis and to take a multi-criteria approach in the route selection process of any planned project in order to maximise the potential use of the amenity. In most cases of smaller greenways and where there are few landowners, the Minister would certainly recommend that all other options be exhausted before land purchase is considered. However, in the context of developing major cycling infrastructure projects that traverse long sections of privately-owned land, the Minister does not think it would be realistic to rely on permissive access agreements given that such agreement can be withdrawn at any time without any recourse to the State. The Minister supports the use of CPO where it is needed but if an alternative approach exists that would give greater security to the State, then he is open to hearing all views.