Route options for Cork to Limerick road not due until early 2022

The decision on the route of the N/M20 road from Cork to Limerick is to be delayed until at least the beginning of 2022, it has been announced. The project delays are in response to anticipated policy updates on sustainable transport infrastructure.

Cork County Council advised that public displays on the route options were now ‘likely to be held’ in quarter one of 2022, further to National Investment Framework for Transport in Ireland (NIFTI) and National Development Plan reviews.

An update on the matter was sought by Cllr Gearoid Murphy at a meeting of the Northern Committee held on Monday.

PROPER GOVERNANCE

Padraig Barrett, director Of services with Roads & Transportation in Cork County Council, advised the elected officials that the delay is ‘a prudent approach’. He stated that the National Investment Framework for Transport in Ireland was published earlier in the year, in March 2021, and that the project team needed to have regard for that, as well as the National Development Plan, which is expected to be published next month.

He continued to state that when developing a project of this importance and scale, it is important that the project compare and assess all options, including potential investment in the rail network and adaptive travel.

“This is a prudent course of action and one that should reassure the public and elected representatives of proper governance and considered evaluation to ensure that the project aligns with Government policy, best practice and value for money.”

Cllr Murphy raised the possibility that the NIFTI framework might ‘steal this project away from being a direct motorway link’. However, Mr Barrett responded that it was too early to say, and that NIFTI was just one consideration of many.

The road from Cork City to Limerick, as it currently is, recorded 253 collisions between 2011 and 2018, 17 of them fatal. The route encompasses Mallow, Buttevant and Croom, and includes 625 junctions. The requirement for improvements to the existing N20 was first identified as far back as 1998.