Row between county mayor and TD over Mallow bypass funding

A row has broken out between a county mayor and a Fine Gael TD over a funding issue for a proposed bypass.

Cork East TD Tom Barry reacted angrily to comments by the Mayor of County Cork, John Paul O’Shea, about funding for the Mallow northern relief road.

The mayor, an independent candidate in Cork North-West, said an announcement of an allocation of €100,000 to progress the bypass was “not worth tuppence”.

Mr O’Shea reflected on a major fanfare late last year when the Government announced it was going to fund a number of road projects in Cork, including the Mallow relief road.

The mayor said the €100,000 allocation was “an election gimmick”.

He claimed to be “bitterly disappointed” as so much work had been done on identifying bypass routes around the town, grinding to a halt with traffic.

Two proposed routes identified by council engineers would link the Fermoy and Mitchelstown roads with the main Cork-Limerick road, costed at €37m and €42m respectively, he said.

The mayor said “it beggars belief” that following all the plans and the mothballing of the proposed Cork-Limerick motorway (M20), only €100,000 was allocated to carry out a feasibility study.

He said the bypass was urgently needed as agri co-op Dairygold’s multimillion-euro expansion in Mallow and Mitchelstown would lead to huge volumes of additional HGVs coming into an already congested Mallow.

“We have three Government representatives and that’s all they could come up with,” said Mr O’Shea.

“This project is going to be long-fingered again, like the M20.”

But Cork East TD Mr Barry hit back: “I’m very disappointed to see a county mayor belittling a key infrastructure project which was hard fought for by local councillors and TDs alike.”

He said the money was being made available to chose the preferred route.

“We can’t go forward for land purchase until this route is identified. It sounds to me that this criticism of the Government is a bit of electioneering on the part of the mayor. It’s a pity because negative electioneering shouldn’t be used because there’s a risk it could slow up the project,” Mr Barry said.

However, councillors from various parties have sided with the mayor. Cllr Tim Collins (Ind), also dismissed the allocation as an election gimmick while Cllr Bernard Moynihan (FF) noted a delegation from the council had met Minister for Transport Paschal Donohoe in Dublin last year to emphasise the importance of the northern relief road.