Galway Ring Road 'fast tracked' for approval as 'first critical infrastructure' project
The State has killed off green lobby’s hopes of a legal challenge as a new bill gives Minister Jack Chambers the power to designate publicly funded projects like the Ring Road as ‘critical infrastructure’
The Galway City Ring Road will be the first project designated as 'critical infrastructure' and fast-tracked for approval through multiple State bodies while removing the right of climate campaigners to mount a legal challenge.
Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation Jack Chambers said the people of Galway have been waiting long enough for the outer bypass and it would be top of the list of designated projects under the Critical Infrastructure Act, recently signed into law by President Catherine Connolly.
Under the Bill, every public body will be required to do everything within its power to accelerate approval of any designated projects in the energy, transport and water sectors deemed as being of particular importance to the economy.
It gives the Minister the power to designate publicly funded projects as critical infrastructure and create a fast-track channel where projects go to the top of the queue for assessment by decision making bodies.
It also “disapplies” Section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 to prevent people taking legal challenges against projects on the grounds that they do not conform with their legal obligations under climate legislation.
The Minister said the legislation was necessary to balance urgent national infrastructure needs with a streamlined, more predictable planning system to allow more homes to be built and and the country's public transport and utility grids to be modernised.
Welcoming the ring road's designation, Minister for Education and Youth Hildegarde Naughton said words must now turn into actions.
“This Government introduced the Critical Infrastructure Act in order to speed up and prevent objectors delaying infrastructure that the Government considers critical. The ring road, in its various designs, has been held up now for approximately 20 years and this cycle of stop-start needs to end,” the Galway West TD stated.
“By designating the ring road as critical infrastructure, the Government will disapply Section 15 of the Climate Act and thus prevent objectors applying to the courts to block the ring road using that Act, as they are presently.
“I am a former Chair of the Oireachtas Climate Committee, and it was never the intention that our Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act be a stick to beat vital infrastructure into submission. This vital designation of our Ring Road will ensure that objectors are not able to use our own laws to defeat the public good.”
The €317 million N6 Galway Ring Road is an 18km project designed to connect the N56 Moycullen Road to the Dublin Road corridor.
The High Court granted leave to four residents to seek a judicial review of the permission granted by An Coimisiún Pleanála (ACP) in April. Judge Richard Humphreys set a provisional date in November for the substantive hearing of the cases.
An Taisce and Friends of the Irish Environment have also applied to the High Court to challenge new Government regulations they say will severely restrict access to justice in environmental cases. The regulations put strict limits on the legal costs that successful litigants can recover when they win an environmental case, potentially leaving them with bills in excess of €100,000.
The Government has allocated over €1 billion under the National Development Plan for the road.
After the ACP's ruling, the National Transport Authority has restarted work on the new Galway Metropolitan Area Transport Strategy, which will dictate land use and transport planning for the next decades. A final strategy is now due in 2027.