Road Projects
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-05
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Robert Troy (FF), Longford-Westmeath

On behalf of the Minister for Transport, I thank the Deputy for the opportunity to address this issue in the House. The proposal for the Cork northern distributor road, NDR, is set out in the Cork metropolitan area transport strategy 2040, CMATS, which was developed by the NTA in collaboration with Cork City Council, Cork County Council and Transport Infrastructure Ireland. During the preparation, the opportunity to thread together several upgrades of existing roads was identified. This would create a coherent orbital route on the north side of Cork city. This route, which was termed the northern distributor road, was considered to address several of the access issues that currently exist on the northside of the city and was included in the final CMATS document. As the Deputy is aware, the Department of Transport published its NDP review sectoral plan in November 2025. As is noted in the sectoral plan, procurement on the NDR is expected to occur over 2028 and 2029, with a view to construction commencing thereafter. The NTA has received all required documents and approved Cork City Council to proceed with the tender for consulting services for phase 3, the preliminary design, and phase 4, the statutory process, for the Cork northern distributor road project. Cork City Council published the consultants tender in December 2025 and has since received interest from 18 consultancy firms on the NTA’s framework. Cork City Council briefed councillors on this update in mid-December. Tender submissions are due by 13 March this year, and Cork City Council plans to appoint a consultant for phases 3 and 4 in May. Phases 3 and 4 are expected to take approximately 36 months to complete, which should then allow for the lodgement of a planning application for the project. Cork City Council plans to undertake another round of non-statutory public consultation after appointing a consultant, so draft designs are likely to be available to the public in quarter 3 of 2027. I look forward to seeing this project progress over the coming years and I thank the Deputy again for raising this matter and giving me an opportunity to update the House.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-05/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:44+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-05