Design package for major Tipperary road could be submitted to TII within weeks
The realignment of a major Tipperary road could be just weeks away from a full design package being handed over to Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), a meeting heard.
Tipperary County Council is working with TII on the N24 Cahir to Limerick Junction scheme, including a long-planned bypass of Tipperary town, where more than 1,000 vehicles pass through Main Street each hour during peak periods.
At the July meeting of Tipperary County Council, Sinn Féin councillor Annemarie Ryan asked a representative from the roads section if there was anything the local authority could do to keep the project moving along.
“Originally, it was included as a priority investment when the National Development Plan was launched in 2021. Nearly five years later, the project is still in design environment assessment, with planning potentially pushed to 2027,” Cllr Ryan said.
“Construction now is potentially not expected until 2031. My concern is that we keep missing potential deadlines. From what I can gather, we’re at least two to three years behind schedule.
“Our big issue in Tipperary town is that we’re still hammered by vehicle movement going through the town and we keep seeming to be facing these delays,” Cllr Ryan added.
The Sinn Féin councillor pointed to the Adare bypass, which is being fast-tracked to be complete for the Ryder Cup at Adare Manor in 2027.
She asked what more the council, TII and local Oireachtas members could do to ensure no further delays.
In response, Liam Brett, the council’s director of services for roads said that the council is a number of weeks away from handing a full design package for the N24 Cahir to Limerick Junction to TII.
“While there has been delays in the delivery of that project, the positive news is that it’s at the very, very latter stages of design, we’re potentially weeks away from handing an entire design package over to TII.
“It then goes through a number of review gates and approval gates within TII, but we’d be very, very hopeful that it’ll progress through those reviews quite quickly and that by the end of this year it will be lodged with An Coimisiún Pleanála,” Mr Brett said.
“Everything that can be done by the team in this local authority is being done and that project is being pushed on,” he said.
If approved by TII, the scheme will then proceed through the statutory planning process with An Coimisiún Pleanála.