Cork TD calls for more investment in roads

CORK South West TD Christopher O’Sullivan TD has called on the Government to invest more into roads in Cork in budget 2024, particularly in the West.

The Fianna Fáil TD and former Mayor of County Cork told the Taoiseach in the Dáil: “Cork has the longest road network in Ireland, I think that’s a well-known stat at this stage.”

In total kilometres, Cork has almost twice the length of primary and regional roads than the county in second place, Galway, and nearly three times longer than Dublin.

O’Sullivan continued: “Probably a stat that is less well known though is that last year, Cork had the highest number of road fatalities.

“There was 14 fatal incidents in Cork last year, 11 of those were in the western division, in West Cork. However, despite those statistics that I’ve just rattled off, Cork has the third lowest ranking in terms of funding for our road network.

“It has on average €1,000 per kilometre less than the average county.

“It’s high time that Cork started getting the investment that it deserves in terms of our road network, its high time that really important roads like the N71 serving areas like West Cork are funded.”

He added: “It’s all well and good talking about reducing speed limits, I’ll tell you this —on the N71 on most sections you cant even reach 80km an hour, so that would make no difference.

“We need substantial investment in our roads in Cork and I’m asking that you would make that a priority in the upcoming budget”, he concluded.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar responded that it’s shocking to see the amount of road fatalities in the last year after so many years of progress, referring to the 136 deaths on Irish roads in 2023 so far, up 23 from the full 12 months of 2022.

He added that the quality of our roads was definitely part of the problem but said that driver behaviour and enforcement were much more significant and “we shouldn’t lose sight of that”.

The Taoiseach added: “In terms of the grants from government, I agree that they should be increased in the forthcoming budget, but we will have to decide how much we can afford to do.”