Concern over funding for Cork's Northern Ring Road project

Just over €500,000 has been allocated to the Cork City Northern Transport Project since 2021, with no funding set aside to progress the proposal in 2024.

The details were disclosed in response to a Dáil question from Cork North Central Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould.

The figures provided by the Transport Infrastructure Ireland head of regulatory and administration, Michael Kennedy, detailed how €129,928 was allocated in 2021 and €339,100 in 2022. There was an allocation of €56,094 in 2023 but no funds were allocated to the project in 2024. The total since 2021 was €525,122.

According to the response from the TII representative, the project has completed phase 1 of the TII traffic management phases, concept, and feasibility.

“If funding is provided in 2025, it will allow phase 2, options selection to commence,” said Mr Kennedy.

Mr Gould said the Northern Transport Project — previously called the Northern Ring Road — is “desperately needed” on the northside.

“Traffic congestion and HGVs moving through the city are bad for air quality and bad for communities,” he said.

“We are faced with a situation in Cork city where the infrastructure on one side of the city is decades behind the other. That is unacceptable, and the Northern Ring Road would be an opportunity to begin to balance the scales. We cannot have regional balancing if we do not have internal city balancing.”

When the question was raised by the Sinn Féin TD in the Dáil, Transport Minister Eamon Ryan confirmed that the project had not received an allocation of funding in 2024, but that it would be kept under review for possible funding in 2025 and future years.

The lack of a funding allocation for 2024 came on the heels of the exclusion of the project from an interactive map for Project 2040, a detailed illustration of where and when major Government infrastructure projects are to be built up to 2024.

When questioned about this in May, the minister for transport responded to say that the greater part of the funding — approximately €5.1bn — would become available in the second half of the decade.