Taoiseach Micheál Martin addresses Meath issues of transport, water supply and housing

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said the Navan rail line project "can’t happen quick enough” and acknowledged that transport infrastructure is key for the Meath's "significant population growth" and the thousands of commuters facing traffic gridlock on the M50 daily.

The Taoiseach was speaking during a visit to BD Floods Concrete Products in Oldcastle where he discussed important issues in the county, including chronic congestion around the M50 and the knock on delays for Meath commuters.

The Fianna Fail leader also acknowledged the growing anxiety around water supply in Leinster counties and towns and villages such as Ballivor which have been hugely impacted by supply issues in recent years.

Up to 190,000 people can use the M50 service on a given day, with tens of thousands of these journeys coming from Meath.

It was revealed last week that 85 per cent of M50 users had experienced delays while using the motorway in the past 12 months. The majority of survey respondents also claimed their travel time had increased by at least 15 minutes per trip, with some reporting over 45 minutes of delays.

“It’s a big issue,” the Taoiseach said when asked about the continuous struggle Meath commuters face on the M50, and connecting motorways, on a daily basis.

“The population is growing exponentially in Meath, and it will continue to grow. All the projections for Meath are of significant population growth, so infrastructure is going to be key - particularly transport infrastructure, the rail infrastructure in Navan.”

However, as the rail line’s construction is currently targeted for 2030, there seems to be no immediate relief in sight.

“All of that can’t happen quick enough,” the Taoiseach acknowledged in relation to the rail line.

“The funding is now in place under the National Development Plan. We have to do both roads and public transport - rail and buses - to try and alleviate the pressures that are on Meath commuters. Perhaps through more innovative ways of organising work, we can reduce the commuter traffic.”

One course of action proposed to help alleviate some of the congestion on the M50, as well as the N2 and M3, was the construction of a Leinster Orbital Route.

The C-Ring route was a motorway running from Drogheda to Naas, providing links to towns such as Navan and Trim in the process. Orbiting Dublin, it was seen as a positive move for traffic gridlock in Meath, Louth, and Kildare, but the plans were scrapped in 2021 but despite 20 years of discussion, the Leinster Orbital Route plan was finally axed in the Greater Dublin Area Strategy with the National Transport Authority pulling the plug on what could’ve been a great support to neighbouring motorway routes.

In terms of reconsideration for the route, Mr Martin said, “We can discuss that with Transport Infrastructure Ireland,” before admitting it was far down the order of priorities.

“We’re open to anything that will enhance the situation for people in terms of getting from A to B, as quickly as possible. We rule nothing out, but we are focused now on the plans that are very well advanced, projects that just need to be delivered, be it rail or road.

“There’s so much on the agenda right now to get done, in terms of existing road infrastructure, and we’ve put record funding aside for it.”

The Taoiseach did not completely rule out the possibility of the Leinster Orbital Route, but it seems like Meath residents should not get their immediate hopes up.

Another growing concern in Meath and surrounding areas is water demand, as high temperatures have led to a growing demand. This includes notable situations such as in Ballivor in recent weeks, where residents were left without water for prolonged periods of time.

Water demand in Meath, Dublin, Kildare, and Wicklow was described as being on a “knife edge” recently, but Martin believes that the government have already made the right steps toward the correct infrastructure needed for extreme weather.

“We have had that hard think [about water supply infrastructure] in the sense that we’ve now allocated €12.5 billion to Irish Water for major infrastructural works.

“I know the wastewater treatment plant in Trim is on the way, works on upgrading at Ballivor Water Treatment Plant is on the way.”

However, according to An Taoiseach, the most influential project for the country lies elsewhere. “The big project for the future has to be the East Midlands project from the Shannon river. That simply has to happen for the future of the county, and the Midlands and the East, including Meath. If that doesn’t happen, there will be significant issues.

“I’ve said to Irish Water as well, they need to work on societal buy-in. They need to bring people with us on these plans because already people are beginning, in the locality where this is, to oppose it or be against it. We simply can’t afford to do without this.

“It is engineering-wise the most effective way to deal with the future growth of population, but also the existing population needs in respect of water and industrial needs, and companies such as Flood Precast and so on. They would all need ready access to both water and electricity and energy.

“If we don’t have the energy, we don’t have jobs, and if we don’t have the water, we can’t develop the houses… We have allocated some solid funding commitment to Irish Water. It’s now up to Irish Water to get on with it and there’s some big projects underway.”

Irish Water told the Oireachtas committee that the project would be ‘comfortably’ completed on time and within a budget of between €4.6bn and €5.9bn.

The project proposes to extract water from Parteen Basin, south of Lough Dearg, and will distribute to Dublin and surrounding counties via a 174km pipe, leading to Peamount in the capital.

Irish Water have said that they were confident that construction would begin in 2028, leading to a project completion date in 2032.