Growing objections to M20 motorway plan

Brian Hyde, CLAG chairman, believes Cork-Limerick traffic should join up with an M24 motorway at the M8 junction near Cahir, rather than having the expense and disruption of building the M20.  Picture: Eddie O'Hare

Autistic children are in danger of losing therapeutic horse-riding, farms could be badly split becoming unviable, while Bovine TB could dramatically rise — just for the sake of making a journey 16 minutes shorter.

These are among the claims of a growing groundswell of objectors to the proposed new Cork-Limerick motorway (M20) who are questioning its environmental and social impacts as well as the ballooning cost, estimated to have climbed to nearly €3bn.

Farmers, environmentalists and school principals have called for a rethink on the project, citing more people will want to work from home in a post-Covid-19 landscape, thus reducing the number of vehicles on our roads.

Members of the Cork-Limerick Alliance Group (CLAG) believe the M20 is an enormous waste of public money, especially in light of the amount of borrowing the government has been forced to do as a result of Covid-19.

They believe better connectivity between the country's second and third cities can be achieved far more cheaply, supporting the views of Tipperary and Waterford county councils to build a motorway between Waterford and Limerick (M24), which would connect to the M8 (Cork-Dublin motorway) at Cahir, Co Tipperary.

GLAG believe the first section of this motorway should be built from Cahir to Limerick, which would provide a full motorway link with Cork, at a fraction of the cost of the M20.

The money saved could be used to build bypasses around gridlocked Charleville and Buttevant, taking traffic away from the latter's nearby 'Ballybeg bends' — a notoriously dangerous stretch of road which has claimed many lives.

A school principal is so angered by the project he's challenged the M20 planners to come and look his pupils in the eye and tell them the road, which will be built just a couple of hundred yards from their school, will not have a detrimental impact on their lives and the environment.

"The M8 is currently under capacity so why not join the Cork-Limerick traffic up with that at Cahir. It would maximise the return on investment in the underutilised M8,” CLAG chairman Brian Hyde said.