Cost of Cork-Limerick M20 motorway needs 'careful' scrutiny, says Eamon Ryan

Eamon Ryan said the m20 motorway between Cork and Limerick needs "careful" examination. File picture. 

The long-mooted M20 motorway between Cork and Limerick needs “careful” examination in case its price tag balloons to €3bn, Environment and Transport Minister Eamon Ryan has warned.

Mr Ryan, speaking in Cork at a Green Party meeting ahead of the Cabinet meeting and announcement of the National Development Plan, insisted he was “100%” behind the overall plan that will be announced by the coalition government.

However, he said he didn’t expect all the roads that will be announced in the plan to come to fruition.

“Not necessarily no, I don’t expect they will. To be honest, there are so many road projects committed to, that if we spent on all of them, we wouldn’t have money to spend on anything else. I’m not ruling them out, I’m not saying definitely no,” he said.

Transport Minister Eamon Ryan said no decision had been made on how to proceed with the M20 motorway. File photo

When it came to the M20 motorway, which has been in various government plans going back decades, he said no decision had been made on how to proceed.

“We are looking at all options and that is why we are not ruling out any, because it is safety first. But we have to be careful because if we went to full motorway status, it could be about €3bn.

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“In the limited budget situation we are in, there are also dozens of other sections of road, whether for safety reasons, or trying to provide compact, better local environment, the question is how do we best use €3bn.

“Safety first, compact development first, low-carbon development first. The exact best way of doing it, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) are going to come back with the recommendations in that regard,” he said.

Mr Ryan said bypasses hit all the bases when it came to balanced regional development, compact local development, and low-carbon development, invoking various Munster towns and projects as examples.

“We push bypasses because they deliver on all key objectives. 

When you put the bypass in Adare or Macroom, you can bring life back to the centre of Macroom. You can turn that square around the bank, which is a stunning public realm place.

“That transforms Macroom, it is compact and also a low-carbon development. You can start to walk to school, or walk to work or cycle to work. You do that in Listowel, all over the country. We have an incredible legacy of 19th-century market towns that are or should be a joy to live in if we can take some of the traffic out that has been the scourge of Irish towns over the last 50 years.

“That’s why I keep going back to TII and pushing bypasses in Ardee and Listowel and Tralee, I could name towns right across the country. It is not saying no to the long-term development of the roads.

“Like we did in Cashel - we did the bypass first, then the road is upgraded, you can connect the bypass into the road. But you start with the bypass. Tipperary town is smothered with trucks going through it. It is 30% dereliction on the main street. It is a stunning town, we want to bring life back to it. That is a central objective in our programme for government. There is political agreement. No TD disagrees,” he said.