Gort to Tuam motorway will give ‘new impetus’ to region

A new motorway in the west of Ireland likely to open early next year could offer the State and investors a “complementary” alternative to creating employment in the Dublin-Leinster region, an Oireachtas committee has heard.

Niall Cussen, a key architect of the forthcoming national planning framework, told TDs and Senators the Gort-to-Tuam extension of the M17/18 motorway will provide critical access for populations and the labour market in south Mayo, east Galway, east Clare and Co Limerick.

Mr Cussen, a principal adviser in the Department of Housing and Planning, was appearing before the Oireachtas committee on Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. He agreed with committee chairman Peadar Tóibín that “jobs tend to locate to infrastructure” and said another key factor was population “catchment”.

Mr Cussen noted that studies had pointed out that a labour force of one million people located within a one-hour range of a centre, or each other, increased productivity and innovation in the region.

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He said the development of the two regional cities, Galway and Limerick, would “now have a whole new impetus and that is a whole area we have to look at”.

Border access road

Mr Cussen said development and the provision of jobs in the region would not be “so much in competition to Dublin but complementary to it”.

However, he was told by Niamh Smyth TD that there was a great need for an east-west access road in the Border counties from Louth westwards through Cavan and Monaghan. Ms Smyth said the M3 motorway from Dublin towards Cavan had invigorated the region through which it passed, but “again like many things” it had stopped at the edge of Co Cavan. There were many self-reliant, small enterprises in the region that should be supported, she said.

Paul Hogan, a senior adviser at the Department of Housing and Planning, agreed that “north of a line from Galway to Dundalk we do need a different kind of strategy”. He said “that part of the country has enterprise” and the forthcoming strategy was looking at how best to “do something there”.

But Mr Hogan warned it was also necessary to “limit the capacity for settlements to just grow and grow endlessly” and he said parts of Co Meath had grown three- to fourfold “over a couple of years”.

The planning framework will attempt to map out the State’s population growth of between now and 2040.

The plan is to be brought to Government by July before a final document is put before the Dáil ahead of October’s budget.