Michael Creed in talks over delayed €160m Ballyvourney to Macroom bypass

The agriculture minister, who has an office on one of the country’s worst bottlenecks, has met with road building chiefs amid fears work on the long-awaited €160m N22 bypass could be delayed by up to five years.

Fine Gael’s Michael Creed, who has an office in the centre of Macroom, Co Cork, said getting work started as soon as possible on the proposed 43km Ballyvourney to Macroom bypass on the main Cork to Kerry road is one of his top priorities but he declined to be drawn on a possible start date.

“I live in the town, my office is on the main street. I know the chaos, the economic cost of the current inadequate road infrastructure,” he said. “Getting this started is top of my agenda. I’m not going to put a timeframe on it but I’m committed to getting it started as quickly as possible.”

A route has been identified, planning was granted by An Bórd Pleanála in 2011, land has been acquired under Compulsory Purchase Order and the government has committed funding to the project as part of its €6bn investment in the road network under its €42bn Capital Investment plan 2016-2021.

But it emerged in July that Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) is prioritising other projects, such as the Dunkettle interchange in Cork, pending the allocation of specific funding to the Macroom scheme.

It is one of several major road projects that have been placed on the backburner, fuelling fears that work on the bypass may not start before 2021 at the earliest.

Mr Creed said he met TII chiefs in recent weeks and is satisfied that all the preparatory work is done to allow construction to start. But he said talks to resolve issues around a specific funding allocation, and whether the project will be undertaken in conjunction with other projects or completed as a standalone project, are ongoing.

“They are issues we are working on. I’m not interested anymore in paper progress. We are at a stage where we need to get contractors on the ground,” he said.

He hit back at opposition TDs who have criticised the ongoing delays, pointing out that despite the economic collapse, the previous government committed funding to the scheme.

“When we had oceans of money, more money than sense, we didn’t make any progress on this project,” he said. “And now I see these self-same people jumping up and down and pointing the finger at this government and its predecessor, which was in a very difficult space in terms of money, and which put this bypass project in the capital programme.”

He said he will continue to liaise with TII to advance the scheme to construction at the earliest date.

The proposed N22 Ballyvourney to Macroom bypass will run from Coolcower roundabout on the Cork side of Macroom and take traffic north of the town, continuing westwards to close to the county bounds west of Ballyvourney. It will include about 22km of dual carriageway and over 20 bridges.

The Construction Industry Federation warned earlier this year that the lack of commencements dates for critical infrastructural projects in the Cork region such as the Macroom bypass, and the N28 upgrade to Ringaskiddy is threatening development in the region.