Unveiling of preferred route option for upgraded N24 between Cahir and Waterford delayed

The announcement of the preferred route option for the upgraded N24 between Cahir and Waterford has been pushed back to November. 

And the completion of the detailed design of the upgraded Cahir to Limerick Junction section of the national route is another 18 months away.

These were the updates Tipperary County Council Senior Roads Engineer John Nolan gave on the N24 projects at last week’s monthly meeting of the local authority’s councillors in Nenagh. 

He was responding to queries from Clonmel Cllr Siobhán Ambrose and Tipperary Town Cllr Annemarie Ryan about the progress of the route selection and design of the two sections of the road project. 

Cllr Ambrose said the preferred route option for the Cahir to Waterford section of the N24 was supposed to have been announced this month and wondered was it guaranteed that it will be announced in November as indicated by Mr Nolan. 

She said a lot of young people were waiting to build on family land in the area but couldn’t because the land was sterilised for new development until the preferred N24 route was selected. 

The Fianna Fáil councillor said it was important that once the preferred route option was announced that funding was secured to further drive this road project so that these people wouldn’t be left in limbo for the next 20 years. 

She thanked Tipperary County Council’s Director of Housing Services Sinead Carr and Mr Nolan for meeting with Minister of State in the Department of Transport Jack Chambers in July to discuss funding to roll out the next phase of the Cahir to Waterford N24 upgrade project, which is the detailed design of the route. 

Mr Nolan responded that work on finishing the second phase of the route selectio process for  the Cahir to Waterford section of the route was coming to a close. 

He agreed the preferred route option for this section was originally scheduled to be announced this month but it has been slightly delayed until November. Transport Infrastructure Ireland’s peer review, one of the final stages of this phase, had begun.  

He was confident the announcement will be made in November but it wasn’t guaranteed. The TII could find something that would delay it further. If this happened the announcement will be put back until January. 

Mr Nolan promised to keep  Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir districts councillors  updated on this.

The Phase 2 planning and design of the Cahir to Limerick Junction section of the N24 is one stage ahead of the Cahir to Waterford section. Mr Nolan informed Cllr Ryan  the design team was in the middle of this third phase, preparing the Environmental Impact Assessment Report and fine tuning the design of the road to get it ready for submission to An Bord Pleanála.

He believed there was about 18 months of work left in this phase.

 “We would expect that application for An Bord Pleanála will be ready in the first quarter of 2025.” 

“The design of one of these roads is a large undertaking. There could be €3m to €4m worth of design going on at the moment and €1m worth of ground investigations and detailed surveying needed to inform the designers,” he explained. 

Mr Nolan said the couldn’t guarantee any time frame for when construction will be ready to start on this section of the N24 but he estimated it would be at least another four to five years. 

He outlined that after An Bord Pleanála decided on the route design application there could be further delays due to an oral hearing being called and a judicial review being sought.

 This was why he estimated it would be between four and five years “at the absolute minimum” before the scheme could start.