Green minister ‘tries to stymie road upgrade’

A former Fianna Fáil Minister has lashed the Government’s coalition partners in the Green Party for trying to stymie the upgrade of the N59 road in Connemara.

Galway West TD Éamon Ó Cuív said the N59 upgrade has gone into what Knock Airport visionary, the late Monsignor James Horan, called the MAD file, or “maximum administrative delay” file.

This was “part of the Greens’ policy to stymie roads projects no matter how bad and how dangerous the road is,” Deputy Ó Cuív told the Tribune.

He vowed that he would “not be giving up on this”, and would continue to push to have the road fully upgraded.

In the Dáil, he pleaded with Tánaiste and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin to intervene and contact the transport minister and Green Party leader, Eamon Ryan.

Deputy Ó Cuív said planning permission for the upgrade of the N59 between Maam Cross and Oughterard was granted almost ten years ago.

At the time, An Bord Pleanála put a condition on the permission that the method statement would have to be approved by the Department with responsibility for heritage. In 2021, method statements were agreed for the first section of the road covering approximately 6 km and that was successfully completed.

“Since then, a series of method statements have been submitted for the other two thirds of the road.

“In particular, two method statements, one relating to ground conditions and the other to archaeological investigations, were submitted to the Department in September 2022.

Despite repeated questions from me to the Minister as to when the Department will deal with these method statements and give the go-ahead for this road that is needed urgently, as it totally substandard and dangerous, there has been no firm reply from the Department,” said Deputy Ó Cuív.

He called for a firm date for the matter to be dealt with so the road project can proceed. Mr Martin gave a commitment that he would talk with the minister about progressing the road.