Onus on coalition to provide maintenance for N73

Cork East Labour TD, Seán Sherlock has said that the Minister for Transport and the Fianna FáilFine Gael-Green Party coalition is skewering investment for road maintenance in favour of cycling investment, leaving roads like the N73 falling to sub-standard levels.

“We’ve been doing further research on the monies that were allocated for cycling infrastructure in the Cork region,” Deputy Sherlock commented.

“We absolutely support the need for better cycling infrastructure. However, it can’t come at the expense of the maintenance and upkeep of roads like the Mallow-Mitchelstown road and no funding, as of yet, has been allocated for 2021 for sections of the Mallow Mitchelstown road.”

“And it seems to me to be a skewering of priorities. If you want to invest in cycling infrastructure, you must also maintain at the most basic level, roads, such as the N73. We’re not seeing evidence of monies coming down the line from the department or directly from the minister.

The minister seems to have focused his attention on cycling, that in itself is not a bad thing, we all want to see increased cycling infrastructure, but if it means that roads become more substandard such as parts of the N73, then that is a skewering of priorities.

“We’re calling on the minister, we’re calling on Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens in government, to at least maintain at a basic level, or realign roads, such as the N73 to bring them up to standard with other national secondary roads, so that everybody who drives those roads is on a level playing field. It’s something that we continue to advocate and press the minister on,” he concluded.