OPINION: Could the Moyross #Build-Our-Road campaign inspire this bypass group in Tipperary?

In 2021 as part of the last review of the National Development Plan, the Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan announced that he would be reviewing the plan for the construction of the €45 million Coonagh-Knockalisheen Distributor Road in Limerick. 

The Minister said he felt the plan needed to be reviewed in terms of benefitting all of Limerick and there was local support for more public transport and rail options.

There was not, in fact, any support for that idea, as the Minister and the Green Party would soon find out.

MOYROSS

The community in Moyross needed the road to open it up to connect it to the north side of the city.

The development of the road had been called a “matter of urgency” in a 2007 report on social exclusion in Moyross to the cabinet committee on social inclusion and was a key project in the Limerick Regeneration Framework Implementation Plan in 2013.

Its construction would provide jobs for people in Moyross and encourage industry development in the area. 

So, Moyross needed this road and at this time it was 14 years in talks. 

#BUILD-OUR-ROAD

In January 2021 the Moyross Partners, a group of stakeholders and residents in the area set up two social media accounts, a Twitter page and a Facebook group, using the #Build-Our-Road.

The Twitter page was used to lobby TDs, ministers and other elected representatives.

It didn’t matter what the Government was announcing or promoting, the campaign group was on it, raising their road. The Facebook group was something different and very special. 

You see, the road was not just a piece of infrastructure, it was a community’s hope for the future. 

And in an area that had suffered so much and worked so very hard to develop itself, the idea that a minister would just drop the plan was not good enough. 

So, the community shared their stories. 

The group had videos, comments and pictures from residents and people from Moyross on what it was like to live and grow up in Moyross. 

They shared news and updates. Local representatives across the political spectrum added letters and motions. 

The partners fought on Twitter and the community poured their hearts out on Facebook.

The group commissioned a sign with the campaign on it and drove it around on a small flatbed truck. 

Various groups, companies, institutions and organisations supported the campaign including LIT, the Corpus Christi school and parish, Barnardos, The Community of Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFR) and many more. 
The campaign was online, offline, mobile and most importantly, could not be ignored.

After just two weeks, on February 10, 2021, Minister Ryan announced he was to sign the contract on the road.

Ground broke on the work in March of that year. 

Since then it has been a rocky road with the contractor RoadBridge going into receivership in 2022.

Efforts are currently being made to restart the project. But they will because everyone agrees this road must be built and the community is 100% behind it. 

THURLES

This week, a group in Thurles set up a Facebook page called Thurles Needs a Bypass and I just couldn’t help but think of the #Build-Our-Road campaign in Moyross. 

Traffic congestion in Thurles could be some of the worst in the country and is quite literally a matter of life and death. 

The narrow, historic roads are clogged daily with HGVs and cars, the drivers of many of which don’t even want to be in Thurles. 

People, particularly elderly people have been injured or killed in the past decade by HGVs in the town. This reporter was almost clipped last year by a HGV that mounted a footpath on the road opposite Bookworm.

A feasibility study was carried out in 2011 and an Inner-Relief road, that won’t provide much relief at all, is currently on the National Development Plan.

And yet, the bypass is not.

But that plan is coming up for review. 

Tipperary County Council, local reps, residents and here’s hoping the Government sees this as an opportunity to get the plan moving.  

The Facebook group for the Moyross campaign is still going under the name #Build-Our-Road (Moyross Partners). 

It’s still active with people posting tributes, notes and other community news. 

Anyone so inclined can go back to that page and see what that amazing community did.

On February 10, 2021, The Moyross Partners issued a statement on their Twitter page.

I will leave you with this quote for inspiration: 

“This campaign should prove to every one of you that when we mobilise, stick together and constructively challenge those in power, we can get our community to where it should be. This campaign isn’t the end. This isn’t even the beginning of the end. This is only the beginning of a movement to ensure the promises that were made to this community will be kept.”