Road Projects
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-05
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Colm Burke (FG), Cork North-Central

I am concerned that the Minister of State is saying 36 months. That is three years. We have the biggest taxpayer in the country in this part of the city. We are saying sorry that they are waiting 45 years, but they will now have to wait between five and eight years more before we do anything for them. It is not good enough to wait three years. We fast-tracked the Adare bypass because we have a lot of people flying in for four weeks, and after those four weeks they will all be gone. Apple is there 45 years. The people of Cork are there all of the time. They are not there for just four weeks out of 20 years. I do not understand why it takes three years to progress a project because that is what we are now talking about. This is not good enough where there is substantial money being earned by the State in respect of a company providing employment to 6,000 people.
That is the number employed there. This is together with all the other people who are employed in Ballincollig, on the western side of the city, or the people employed in south Cork who have to travel through the city to get to their place of employment. We are now saying it is going to be another three or four years before we even go to the stage of inviting tenders for construction, and it may very well be six years. In view of the urgency of the matter and the fact that this project was parked for over ten years, can we not now give it priority? Can we not give priority to the consultation, the drafting of the plans and to advertising to bring in the contractors to build? It is extremely important for the city and for the many people who are working in the city and on its outskirts. I thank the Minister of State.

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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