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Irish Independent
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Irish Independent
The Cork highway that's so bad even the county's roads boss has called it ‘substandard & unsafe'
A motion by Councillors Anthony Barry and Rory Cocking at this week's meeting of the local authority's Southern Division called for urgent funding for increased safety and traffic management measures on the section of the N25 between Midleton and Carrigtwohill. Cllr Cocking said the section near Carrigtwohill is 'absolutely lethal' with trucks merging on to the road from a nearby quarry. 'And when these trucks are coming onto the road, it's forcing cars into the fast lane and the speed is horrendous there at the moment.' The East Cork councillor said that with thousands of housing units proposed between Midleton and Carrigtwohill, 'this is only going to get worse. I believe the road is at capacity at the moment and a serious upgrade is required. Unfortunately, we've seen a lot of accidents in recent times. Some of them have had fatalities, unfortunately.' Cllr Barry said that that section of the N25 has had 'fundamentally no improvement works since the day it was opened in 1968. It is a crazy situation from a health and safety level.' 'It poses serious questions for further development in East Cork. And we're talking about putting another 4,000 to 5,000 residential units down there. I think it throws into question any further development that can be put in place on the [rail] corridor until that basic infrastructure is put in place.' Responding to the motion, Padraig Barrett, Director of Services in the council's Roads and Transportation section, said national funding for the Carrigtwohill to Midleton upgrade was suspended in 2022 and hasn't been restored since despite the best efforts of the council. 'From my own point of view, I would consider it one of my greatest disappointments in my role as Director of Services for roads in Cork County. It's a road that's carrying 36,000 vehicles a day, it's an absolutely essential project. It's a substandard, unsafe road.' Mr Barrett said the council is hopeful that the revised National Development Plan announced this week with its €28bn budget for transport will provide funding for the upgrade. The Cathaoirleach of the Southern Division, Cllr Ann Marie Ahern, called on central government to address the lack of funding for the N25 upgrade as a priority. 'I don't think we as a council can accept it going forward. This isn't a reflection of Cork County Council at all, this is actually a reflection of a Taoiseach, who's from Cork, who isn't acting for Cork, and particularly East Cork. And the ministers that are sitting up there, we haven't seen anything in ten years down in East Cork for the N25,' she said.
Irish Examiner
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Department of Education accused of 'disgraceful behaviour' over refusal of sports pitch for Cork school
A Cork school with more than 1,800 pupils has been left with no grass pitch, despite land being earmarked for it. Cork County Council is urging the Department of Education to rectify the issue at Carrigtwohill Community School and open the designated three-acre site for school sports. The planning application made by the department in 2019 originally included the grass pitch, but when a revised application was later submitted, it had disappeared from the project. Carrigtwohill-based Fine Gael councillor Anthony Barry said it was subsequently classed by the department as "a flood attenuation area". The Department of Education, in replies to questions from then-Fine Gael TD David Stanton, said it was never intended to develop the site for the use of the school community. 'Eventually, last year the then-minister for education responded to calls by the school community to use the site as designated in the original planning application and in the County Development Plan as a playing field. This site was to be used under the remit of Carrigtwohill Community School,' Mr Barry said. However, following a recent parliamentary question by Fine Gael TD Noel McCarthy, the department reverted back to the decision not to allow the school use of the field. Mr Barry raised the issue at a Cobh Municipal District Council meeting, saying: 'In this day and age, surely we should be encouraging students at every opportunity to engage in physical outdoor activity and preventing the use of this area for this purpose is quite mind-boggling." He said hopefully 'commonsense will prevail' and new education minister Helen McEntee would sanction the use of the land as a pitch. 'Carrigtwohill is one of the fastest growing communities in the country and space of this nature is at a premium and quite simply cannot be left lie idle,' he added. Fianna Fáil councillor Dominic Finn, who is a teacher, described the situation as 'disgraceful behaviour', and added 'it's crazy' that children attending the massive campus have to travel elsewhere to use a grass pitch. Their colleagues also backed the motion to contact the department and put pressure on to have it opened for sports. Read More Cork County Council is only local authority without language policy for Gaeltacht housing
