Road Projects Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-14 ============================================================ Fiona O'Loughlin (FF), Administrative Panel Members and indeed many Ministers will have heard me talking about the absolute need for a second bridge, a vital piece of infrastructure, for Newbridge and its environs. The bridge is an essential part of the southern outer orbital route. About 25% of the route has been completed, and much of the remaining 75% is at the stage of completion. Why is the bridge needed? Newbridge is a town of around 30,000 people. There are five schools practically sitting on the bridge that we have, which is the only way in and out of Newbridge. I travel through that bridge as well and you can appreciate that at school start time and with congestion - a lot of people coming into or leaving Newbridge to work - we all have to time it and to try to stagger our timings because if you are caught, you are badly caught. I am sure the Chair knows it too. There have been huge delays basically for commuters and people going to school. If there is any issue like flooding or roadworks or whatever, everybody is just held completely to ransom. Having a second bridge has been on the cards for a long time but there absolutely has been progress. Planning permission was given last September 12 months to the company that owned the land where the approach to the bridge would have to be taken. Last September, the business case was accepted by the Minister for Transport, Deputy O'Brien. We had hoped that with some more negotiation the construction would start in 2027 and I still believe that we can do that, but there has been a fly in the ointment since then. The company that owned the land had a planning permission request with An Coimisiúin Pleanála, ACP, and two weeks ago that was turned down. I have no doubt but that the company will put in for another planning permission based on the report it got. To be fair, at all times the company indicated that it was willing to work with Kildare County Council and the Department should it not get planning permission. There is a real fear from people around Newbridge that the bridge will not go ahead because of the refusal. I do not believe that to be the case but I have no doubt that an update has been given to the Department because it does see this as a priority project. I appreciate that the Minister of State is here to take this Commencement matter. I want to seek reassurance that this is still a priority for Kildare County Council and for the Minister and the Department. It is absolutely vital to the growth of Newbridge, which is growing exponentially. It is a town that is well served by our railway line. We have a lot of new housing. We need to be able to have traffic moving smoothly. It is so important, so this bridge is a priority. Having a town bus - which I raised before with the Minister of State - is another priority. However, in this instance, we are talking about the bridge. We want to have assurance around its delivery and around the timelines because the last timeline I had was that it was hoped to start in 2027. I would appreciate if the Minister of State could respond to me. --- 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/2026-04-14/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:48+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-14