Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. Once again, I am raising the matter of the upgrading and building of the M20 motorway between Limerick and Cork. I am a public representative, representing Limerick city and a portion of the county. It is the single biggest item of infrastructure that needs to be completed in the State. I have raised this issue with the Minister on numerous occasions, including on 16 June last, and I know he has an interest in the matter.

There will be a mid-term review of the capital plan next year but before that happens, I hope the project will have received the go-ahead. It is a large and important project and I ask that the planning process be restarted before the review. When the project was suspended in November 2011, the planning process had, in the main, been completed as far as An Bord Pleanála level. This project can be reactivated. A lot of the work can be done prior to the mid-term review in 2017 and no time would be lost.

The planning process will involve Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, recruiting engineers and consultants to review the project. Under public procurement rules, that will take a number of months. There would be no cost to the State until they are in place. I seek a practical measure to restart the project and move it forward.

The mid-term review will consider giving the full green light to the building of the project but what I propose would provide us with, dare I say it, a flashing amber light. It would allow us to proceed, get the work done in preparation for the mid-term review and lose no time.

There are a number of reasons the M20 motorway is important. The first is that the most recent environmental impact study done by TII states that the benefits will outweigh the costs by more than two to one. Second, there are significant benefits in terms of time. At the moment, it takes well over 1.5 hours, or longer at peak times, to commute between Limerick and Cork - there is no certainty. The M20 would take 40 minutes off the journey time at peak times and would provide certainty. The third issue is safety. There have been fatalities along the existing N20 over the past number of years. Recently, on the small section of the M20 that has been built outside Limerick towards Patrickswell, there have, unfortunately, been fatalities.

The damage this delay is doing to connectivity and competitiveness in the region makes it imperative that the project goes ahead. In terms of balanced regional development, Dublin is doing very well but for Ireland to progress as a country, we must have balance around the regions. We need a counterpole to Dublin. The Galway to Tuam route is being completed. People will be able to commute between Galway and Limerick in a relatively short period of time. We need to ensure that people can do likewise from Limerick to Cork.

Synergies would be provided for Ireland internationally in terms of attracting foreign direct investment. People in my area are commuting daily to Cork and vice versa. We are a small country and need connectivity. I ask the Minister to restart the planning process and allow consultants to be recruited by TII in advance of the normal mid-term review of the capital plan in mid-2017.