{"id":511601,"date":"2026-06-21T20:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T20:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/511601\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T20:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T20:45:09","slug":"road-is-falling-apart-west-cork-councillors-seek-urgent-meeting-with-government-over-neglected-n71","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/511601\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Road is falling apart&#8217;: West Cork councillors seek urgent meeting with government over &#8216;neglected&#8217; N71"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\"><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.echolive.ie\/corknews\/arid-41865777.html\">West Cork<\/a> councillors are seeking a meeting with government ministers and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) to press the case for increased investment in the N71 road, which they described as being in a poor and dangerous condition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The issue was raised at\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.echolive.ie\/corknews\/arid-41865747.html\">Cork County Council&#8217;s<\/a> West Cork Municipal District by Fine Gael\u2019s Caroline Cronin, who called for councillors from across West Cork to form a delegation to meet with decision-makers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Ms Cronin said road users in West Cork are being let down by a lack of investment in the region\u2019s main national route.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cThe people of West Cork pay their road tax like everyone else, but we are left with a national route that is in an extremely poor state and not fit for purpose,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Need to stand together\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">She stressed that the condition of the road is not the fault of Cork County Council but instead due to insufficient funding from TII.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            \u201cWe need to stand together and demand the funding that the N71 deserves. Our communities, businesses, and road users deserve a safe and modern road network.\u201d\u00a0\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Ms Cronin said previous representations had been made by municipal district chairpersons, but argued that local councillors needed to bring the message directly to ministers and TII officials.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Municipal district officer Eimear O\u2019Neill said any such initiative should be undertaken in consultation with the council\u2019s roads directorate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Independent Ireland councillor Daniel Sexton supported the proposal, describing the N71 as neglected.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Road is falling apart<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cOur national road is falling apart,\u201d he said. \u201cFor a national route, it\u2019s absolutely appalling, and it\u2019s very dangerous in a lot of sections.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Mr Sexton said the lack of overtaking opportunities between Bandon and Skibbereen was a major issue, particularly given the volume of slow-moving agricultural traffic using the route.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cThere\u2019s nowhere safe to pull in, and we\u2019re not getting enough funding from TII,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s Deirdre Kelly said concerns about the N71 had been raised repeatedly over many years. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t deserve to be called a national road at this point.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                Article funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Cork councillors are seeking a meeting with government ministers and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) to press the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[79,28858,34580,61,60,43,620],"class_list":["post-511601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-news","tag-cork-roads","tag-cork-transport","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-west-cork"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}