Active Travel
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-24
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Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (SF), Cork South-Central

I find the Minister’s response encouraging. It seems he understands the benefits of the project and I hope he will look at it favourably when the more fleshed-out proposal comes to him. I appreciate him saying €4,000 is significant in the sense that it represents a commitment. It is obviously not going to go very far in this particular year, even in terms of detailed design and so on. The council is not going to be in a position to engage a contractor or subcontractor. For that kind of money it will have to do it inhouse, and figure out some kind of plan in that regard. I hope it is in a position to do something like that.
I will be engaging with the city council to ensure it is able to advance design during the course of the year. From what the Minister is saying, it sounds as if from the discussions his Department has had with the local authority, what is anticipated is pedestrian access via a bridge adjacent to the Mick Barry Road. That is what is being looked at. There are various options in terms of tunnels and things like that and there probably were difficulties in terms of that, but realistically we are looking at a bridge. I welcome that. It is vitally important. I will continue to engage with Cork City Council.
In terms of the Minister’s experience, perhaps he could give us a sense - it is difficult to say at this point – in terms of delivery. Is he reasonably satisfied that within the envelope that is there over the coming two or three years, there is scope to support a project like this in the next couple of years from within the allocation provided to the NTA?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-24