Road Projects
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-10
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John Paul O'Shea (FG), Cork North-West

I thank the Minister of State for his kind words relating to this project. It is a very detailed project and there is a lot of money involved, but I welcome the fact that in his response, he said the scheme preliminary business case is expected to be submitted to the Department of Transport in the second half of this year. This is very welcome news. We need to keep this momentum going, and subject to Government approval, which I am sure will come as is required under the infrastructure guidelines, the submission of the statutory documents for the project will be forwarded to An Coimisiún Pleanála. I thank the Minister of State very sincerely for his response.
As two Cork TDs in this area, we met the representatives of Cork Development Forum recently in Leinster House, and the Cork Chamber of Commerce. There is huge backing to finally proceed to get that infrastructure project between Cork and Limerick together. It is very important and poignant that today further infrastructure announcements were made by Government to move the delivery of infrastructure more quickly. That is very much where the N20-M20 project is at. I hope this project will fit into this Bill. Like the lengthy duplicative processes, the project will undergo a streamlined, time-bound internal review by the Department of public expenditure. The kind of practical reform the Government wants to see is when infrastructure is ready to go, the system should help it to move and not hold it back if at all possible. I thank the Minister of State for his comments on the project. It is important that we collectively, as Corkonians but also as Government representatives, move forward and match the words with actions to ensure that this N20-M20 project motorway moves decisively from aspiration to reality.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-10