Six weeks ago in this column, I described the approval of the N6 Galway City Ring Road as potentially the most consequential planning decision for Galway’s housing market in a generation. I meant every word of it. The relief felt across the region when An Coimisiún Pleanála finally issued that decision in April was real and it was earned, the product of more than 30 years of planning, campaigning, legal battles, and hard money spent.
This week, that relief has been tempered. Two separate judicial review proceedings were lodged in the High Court on May 29, challenging the planning authority’s decision to grant approval for the project. The cases are being taken by affected homeowners, people whose properties sit directly in the path of the proposed route, and they are represented by Dublin law firm BC Law LLP.
Before anything else, that human reality deserves acknowledgement. Fifty-four families face losing their homes to this road. Derek Pender, a senior engineer with Galway County Council who has worked on this project since 2018, has described the meetings he has held with affected residents as the most difficult and emotive of his entire career. These are not abstract figures in a planning file. They are real people, in real homes, facing genuine uncertainty that has in many cases extended for years. They have every legal right to challenge a decision that affects their lives so fundamentally, and no one should pretend otherwise.
Councillor Shane Forde has made the point publicly that affected residents feel they were not sufficiently engaged with during the process. There is something important in that. The Dublin Road Bus Connects project in Galway city secured approval without a judicial review in part because of genuine, sustained dialogue with affected parties. That outcome was possible. It shows engagement works. The lesson should be applied here, and applied urgently.
And yet.
Galway cannot wait another decade. That is the blunt reality of where this city finds itself, and it is a reality that those of us working in the property market see reflected in numbers every week.
This ring road has already been through one complete planning cycle that ended with the High Court quashing An Bord Pleanála’s December 2021 approval because the State’s Climate Action Plan had not been adequately factored into the assessment. Galway County Council went back, resubmitted revised documentation including a fresh Environmental Impact Assessment Report and a new Natura Impact Statement. An Coimisiún Pleanála spent the time required, conducted the process properly, and issued its approval this April. That is not a rushed or careless decision. It is the output of a rigorous second process that addressed the specific grounds on which the first decision fell.
The money is committed. The Government has allocated over one billion euro under the National Development Plan for this project. Taoiseach Micheál Martin told the Dáil that congestion in Galway is a huge problem and that the ring road needs to be built. Minister of State Seán Canney, whose constituency takes in much of the affected corridor, confirmed the funding is in place and the Government is fully behind it. Political will, financial commitment, and planning approval are all aligned, a combination that is rarer in Irish infrastructure than it should be.
What the courts will now do with the judicial review is a matter for the courts. That is as it should be. But the rest of us have a responsibility to be clear about what further delay means in practice.
When I wrote in April about the lands at Ardaun, Briarhill and Garraun, development areas explicitly identified in the Galway Metropolitan Area Strategic Plan as requiring this ring road to unlock delivery, I was describing a housing pipeline that is commercially viable only when the infrastructure is confirmed. Legal uncertainty is not the same as a planning refusal, but in property development terms, the effect is similar. Developers do not commit at scale when the enabling infrastructure is subject to High Court proceedings. Banks do not fund projects premised on infrastructure that may be further delayed. That is not cynicism. It is how investment decisions work.
The wider consequence extends further still. The National Transport Authority made a deliberate decision to suspend development of the new Galway Metropolitan Area Transport Strategy, the framework that will govern land use and transport planning across this region for the next 20 years, until the ring road question was settled. When the April approval came through, the NTA immediately re-engaged and recommenced work on the strategy. A draft is now expected out for public consultation before the end of this year, with the final strategy due in 2027.
If the judicial review throws the ring road back into prolonged uncertainty, that transport strategy stalls again. The light rail proposal, the Gluas, which cannot advance until the ring road is in place according to its principal backers stalls again. The housing pipeline stalls again. And the families in Knocknacarra, Rahoon, Salthill and the western suburbs continue to pay the price in gridlock, while families across Galway’s catchment make housing decisions that take them to Athenry, Loughrea, Tuam and Oranmore because city living feels too difficult, too expensive, or too inaccessible.
The cost of this delay will not appear on any balance sheet. It will be measured in younger households choosing somewhere other than Galway city. It will show up in asking prices that keep rising because supply is constrained by infrastructure that never comes. It will register in the frustration of the 500 businesses and 30,000 employees that Galway Chamber represents, who have already warned that further delay would seriously undermine the region’s economic trajectory.
There is a more constructive path available. Galway City Council’s director of services, Derek Pender, has pledged to engage with affected homeowners and landowners. The precedent of the Bus Connects approval on the Dublin Road shows that when genuine dialogue happens, legal challenges can be avoided altogether. What is needed now is not triumphalism from those who welcomed the approval, nor entrenchment from those who feel they weren’t heard. What is needed is structured, face-to-face engagement, a mediation process, and the kind of practical problem-solving that cuts through institutional processes and actually reaches the people most directly affected.
Galway West TD John Connolly has publicly called on the Taoiseach and the Transport Minister to get involved. He is right to do so. This is now a matter of national consequence.
In April, I described the ring road approval as the starting gun for a new chapter in how Galway grows. That chapter is still possible. But only if the people with the power to resolve this, on all sides, treat it with the urgency it demands. The housing market will not wait indefinitely. Neither will the people who need homes in it.
For more visit www.fairdealproperty.ie
Johnny Gannon is the founder of Fair Deal Property Auctioneers and Estate Agents. For advice on buying or selling in the Galway market, contact Fair Deal Property on 091 394593.
