As Minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport, I have responsibility for overall policy and funding in relation to the national roads programme. The planning, design and implementation of individual road projects (such as the N20) is a matter for Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) formerly the National Roads Authority (NRA) under the Roads Acts 1993 to 2007 in conjunction with the local authorities concerned.
Earlier this week, the transport elements of the Capital Plan in the period to 2022 were announced. Decisions on road projects included in the Capital Plan were framed by the conclusions reached in my Department’s Strategic Investment Framework for Land Transport. This report highlighted the importance of maintenance and renewal of transport infrastructure together with targeted investments to enhance the existing network through improving connections to seaports, to poorly served regions, to large-scale employment sites, and addressing critical safety issues. In framing the capital plan choices had to made given the overall funding envelope available and it was not possible to include a range of projects, including a project of the scale of the N20.
The Capital Plan Work does include projects targeted at removing critical bottlenecks subject to planning. Among the projects announced was the Mallow Relief Road and I understand the progression of that scheme would alleviate some of the current bottlenecks at Mallow.