Bam wins contract to build €456m M28 Cork to Ringaskiddy motorway

A map that shows the route of the planned M28 motorway to Ringaskiddy.

Bam has won the contract to build the €456m M28 Cork to Ringaskiddy motorway.

While contracts for the road scheme are not due to be signed until the end of May, the Irish Examiner has learned that Bam Civil has been chosen to build the main section of motorway from Bloomfield interchange on the N40 South Ring Road to Barnahely, near the Port of Cork.

Bam is building the National Children’s Hospital in Dublin, where soaring costs have sparked political controversy.

The firm is also involved in the Cork event centre saga, where despite a sod turning in 2016 and some €57m in State aid on the table, construction has yet to start and costs have soared too. The government has ordered a new procurement process for an increased public funding package amid concerns over State-aid rules.

The firm has however built several schools and courthouses under public-private partnership bundles. It delivered the N25 New Ross bypass, which includes the award-winning Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge, the longest extradosed bridge of its kind in the world, and it's building 302 cost rental apartments on Cork's Horgan's Quay in partnership with the Land Development Agency.

It is also delivering the vast public infrastructure works project at Waterford's north quays, including an integrated transport hub with the relocation of Waterford train station, and the construction of a sustainable transport bridge over the Suir.

It is now mobilising a range of machinery, equipment and resources on the M28 site ahead of the formal contract signing for the motorway scheme.

It comes just weeks after Cabinet gave approval for the main M28 contract to be signed, with assurances that the scheme would “immediately progress to the construction phase”.

Fianna Fáil TD for Cork South Central, Seamus McGrath, welcomed the news that everything is being put in place to ensure that work can start immediately once contracts are signed.

“I very much welcome the mobilisation on site of the contractor,” he said.

“After so many years, it is really positive that we are now at the point where the main contract for the construction of the M28 is about to get underway.

“This is a critically important infrastructural project for the Cork region as a whole and particularly the harbour area.” 

The M28 scheme, which secured planning in 2018, involves the construction of approximately 11km of motorway from the N40 Bloomfield Interchange to Barnahely, with a 1.5km single carriageway protected road linking to the eastern side of Ringaskiddy.

Work on this 1.5km section is already well underway as part of a separate contract, with Sorensens due to complete the work in early 2026.

However, while Cork County Council said it had “identified the most economically advantageous tender” to build the main 10km stretch, the department of transport raised last minute questions just before Christmas about the project’s final business case, resulting in a slight delay in the project coming to Cabinet for approval.

That approval came in April. The scheme is expected to take three years to complete.

The M28 will replace the existing N28, which was not designed to accommodate current traffic volumes.

It will also improve road safety on a stretch which has seen many serious road traffic collisions and fatalities, especially around Carr’s Hill.