Minister for Transport Martin Cullen yesterday turned the sod on a 40km-long road building project on the Dublin-Cork route that could cut 15 minutes off the journey time between the two cities.
The M8/N8 Cullahill to Cashel development, due for completion in 2009, comprises 10.5km of motorway between Cullahill, Co Laois and Urlingford, Co Kilkenny and 29km of dual carriageway between Urlingford and Cashel, Co Tipperary, and is expected to cost €434 million, according to the National Roads Authority (NRA). The NRA estimates that it could reduce travel times between Dublin and Cork to between three and three-and-a-half hours.
The road will be accompanied by flyovers, underbridges and overbridges at six villages in counties Kilkenny and Tipperary. The Department of Transport believes that once completed in autumn 2009 some 13,000 vehicles daily will be removed from these villages.
Speaking at the sod-turning ceremony in Two Mile Borris, Co Tipperary, Mr Cullen said the road project, the longest to be undertaken in the State, would reduce the likelihood of future road crashes on the busy route.
"The N8 has its share, regretfully, of serious and fatal accidents. This new road will improve on the current situation by removing most of the traffic from the existing single carriageway road - with its numerous accesses and junctions - to a new, high quality dual carriageway/motorway standard road, which will have grade separated junctions at four locations.
"The existing minor junctions where many of the most serious high speed collisions occur will be removed," he said.
The construction of this "latest link in the chain" would boost economic growth locally and nationally, while reducing travel times on the Dublin-Cork route by 15 minutes, he added.
Mr Cullen has said that all stages of the Dublin-Cork route will be completed to motorway or high quality dual carriageway standard by 2010.
Several stages, including that from Dublin to Portlaoise and the Mitchelstown relief road, have already been completed.
Construction of the Cashel-Mitchelstown road began last May and is due for completion by the end of 2009.
The remaining large-scale projects - Portlaoise to Cullahill and Mitchelstown to Fermoy - are due to be built on a phased basis by 2008.