Sections of busy Cork of road deemed ‘substandard and unsafe’

There has been “an unconscionable amount of serious traffic accidents” on the main Cork to Waterford road, with at least 10 fatalities in the past four years.

The stark data reinforces the need for an upgrade of the N25, especially on its busiest section between the Jack Lynch Tunnel and Midleton, a Cork East TD has said, as senior county council management admitted it is currently “substandard and unsafe”.

Social Democrat TD Liam Quaide obtained provisional data from the Road Safety Authority (RSA), which shows there were 10 fatal accidents on the N25 between Waterford and Cork between 2022 and the end of September 2025.

During that period, there were another 31 serious injury accidents on the same route, and a further 87 were categorised as minor injury collisions.

Collisions

On the N25 section between the Rincrew roundabout to the north of Youghal and Cork city’s boundary near the Jack Lynch Tunnel, there were four fatal accidents, 16 classified as serious injury crashes, and 42 minor injury collisions.

Senior Cork County Council officials have repeatedly maintained that the section between the city boundary and Midleton is over capacity, with traffic becoming increasingly dangerous.

Padraig Barrett, head of the Cork County Council’s roads and transportation directorate, described that particular section of road as “substandard and unsafe”.

Mr Quaide said the persistence of fatal and serious incidents on the N25 points to a road that is operating under chronic strain.

Traffic volumes are expected to increase even further in the coming years.

Upgrading

Mr Quaide said that the only way to make the N25 safer — apart from significantly upgrading it — is to reinstate the old Youghal to Midleton railway line.

Transport minister Darragh O’Brien said late last year that “while the N25 Carrigtwohill to Midleton project did not receive an allocation for 2025, it remains part of the national development plan, and the delivery of this project will be kept under review in the coming years”.