Road Projects Seanad Éireann — 2025-11-12 ============================================================ Emer Higgins (FG), Dublin Mid-West I thank Senator Kyne for tabling this important issue. The Minister for Transport has responsibility for overall policy and Exchequer funding in relation to the national roads programme and he has asked me to take this matter on his behalf. I start by saying thank you to the Senator for his strong advocacy on behalf of Galway and Connemara over several years. He read out a huge list of areas where progress is happening, projects that are being delivered and funding that has been in place. This is down to strong local advocacy, so I thank the Senator for that. As he will be aware, once funding arrangements have been put in place with Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, under the Roads Acts 1993–2015, and in line with the national development plan, the planning, design, improvement and upgrade of individual national roads is a matter for TII in conjunction with the local authorities concerned. Ultimately, TII delivers the national roads programme in line with Project Ireland 2040 and the national planning framework as well as the NDP. The Senator spoke about the review of the NDP and he is right that we had a very big review of it in July this year. We put additional funding behind a new and even more ambitious national development plan for our country. Part of that involves investing in our roads network and our transport and infrastructure networks. Each line Minister has been given their capital funding allocation, and they are now putting together their priorities and their list. In the context of the national roads programme, the capital budget that is provided by the Department of Transport to TII is significant, and significant funding has been provided towards the development of the N6 Galway city ring road, which has been allocated €13.4 million since 2020, including €2.4 million this year alone. This is because it is a very important project. It acts as a gateway to Connemara and the western region, as the Senator pointed out, and that includes the large Gaeltacht areas. The optimisation of transport connectivity within Galway city is critical to help the region chart a steady course for economic growth. Benefits that the project could bring include increased accessibility to the west, a reduction in traffic volumes on the existing city road network and safer journeys for all road users in the city centre. The Senator clearly outlined that in his contribution. The Galway city ring road is a component of the Galway transport strategy. The Senator referred to the ring road as having a long and chequered history, and the Minister for Transport has provided me with the background to that. This scheme was submitted to An Bord Pleanála, which, of course, is now an coimisiún. It approved the scheme with conditions on 6 December 2021. Subsequently, there were three applications for judicial review submitted to the High Court, which imposed a stay on progressing the scheme. An Bord Pleanála subsequently took the decision not to oppose the judicial review taken by Friends of the Irish Environment against the decision to grant planning permission for the project. An Bord Pleanála stated that it took this decision on the grounds that the Government's most recent climate action plan was not taken into consideration before making the decision to grant permission. It was then for the High Court to decide whether to grant an order to quash the decision of the board. On 30 January 2023, the High Court quashed that decision to approve the scheme and remitted the application back before the board. An Coimisiún Pleanála will need to consider the application and make a new decision. I have recently requested further information from Galway City Council, including an updated environmental impact assessment report and a Natura impact statement. Galway County Council submitted its response to this request by An Coimisiún Pleanála on 14 April. On 13 June, Galway County Council was informed that a further consultation would be required. A consultation period was held between 27 June and 1 August, and 28 submissions were received in response to that public consultation. As the Senator said, the next iteration of the NDP review means the Ministers now have to put their funding priorities in place and outline their plans for the coming years. The Minister for Transport is confident that Galway City Council and TII will continue to work together to advance the delivery of this really important road project in the Senator’s region. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-11-12/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:18+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-11-12