Cork link motorway ‘would save 70 lives’

ENGINEERING experts have told a Bord Pleanála oral hearing up to 70 lives could be saved over the next 30 years if a motorway is developed between Cork and Limerick.

More than 250 people, who packed day one of the hearing at the Charleville Park Hotel yesterday, heard Eileen McCarthy, associate director of Arup consulting engineers, say between 1996 and 2007 a total of 35 people had died as a result of crashes on the main road between Cork and Limerick (N20).

In addition, she said there had been 85 serious and 369 minor injuries following accidents on that road during the same period.