Member's statement: A5 Project

Member's statement by Mr Daniel McCrossan on 8 September 2025.

MLA

Mr Daniel McCrossan

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

8 September 2025

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

A5 Project

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5068001

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The A5 project came to a grinding halt on 23 June 2025 as a result of a judicial review taken against the Department for Infrastructure.

Since then, the silence from the Sinn Féin Infrastructure Minister on that all-important issue has been deafening. Several weeks ago, the Minister told the public that she would challenge the latest court ruling on the A5. Since then, all that we have heard is that an appeal has been submitted: no explanation, no plan, no indication whatever of how her Department intends to proceed or, crucially, how it intends to avoid making the exact same mistakes all over again. Families have not been updated, landowners have been left in limbo with their land in a terrible state, and accidents still happen on a daily basis. It is not a minor scheme: the A5 is the most important infrastructure project in the North of Ireland. It will cost £1·7 billion to connect Tyrone, Derry and Donegal safely with the rest of the island, yet, for almost 20 years, the project has been stuck in delay, tied up in court challenges and mismanaged at every turn. More than 50 people — 50 innocent lives — have been lost on that road while Ministers and Departments have dithered, delayed and failed to get the project over the line. The mistakes that have halted the A5 are unforgivable. They stink of complete, utter and absolute incompetence by the Department. Over the summer, we learned that DFI officials met DAERA on the issue of climate compliance not seven times, as they originally told us on paper, but 13 times. They had 13 meetings, and still the Department produced a scheme that could not survive a legal challenge; 13 meetings, and still they did not manage to get it right. If that is not incompetence, what is it? PAC recommendations were ignored. Where is the accountability for those who presided over the project and led to that terrible failure? The Minister has chosen silence as a response, but silence will not comfort the families who have lost loved ones. Silence will not reassure the people of west Tyrone, Derry and Donegal, who continue to risk their lives by travelling on that road daily, and silence will not deliver the A5. Let us be clear to the Sinn Féin Infrastructure Minister: you must come out, give a statement and update people on where the project is. I have never heard such silence from Sinn Féin in West Tyrone on this so-called priority. People's lives are at risk daily. Let us get the road built. Let us ensure that lives are saved and give the west what it truly deserves and has waited long enough for. It is time that the Minister got on with that job.

464 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:56 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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