Pádraig Hoare: Just go and build the M20 motorway

The recovery is ongoing, our political leaders say. Regional development is now priority, they promise. The south-west has enormous economic potential, they insist.

Yet, as we enter 2017, two of the most important centres of economic life in Ireland outside of Dublin are linked only by an execrable road network that would not be out of place in emerging democracies around the world.

It is a fact of life than, on any given day, a motorist can be stuck in second gear behind a tractor for half an hour at a time when travelling between Cork and Limerick.