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The N14 forms part of the main road from Dublin to Letterkenny, starting as the N2 before becoming the A5 in County Tyrone. At Strabane the N14 forks off and continues to Letterkenny. The existing N14 was built around the year 1800 and is a low quality road with many tight bends, poor visibility and lots of side accesses. This scheme will see a completely new high-quality dual-carriageway built offline; the current road will remain in place but revert to local use. The new road will have only four intermediate junctions between Manorcunningham and Lifford – two left-in/left-out junctions near Drumoghill, a grade-separated junction at the R236 serving Raphoe (north) and a grade-separated junction at the R264 serving Raphoe (south) and Lifford. It will terminate on a roundabout on the existing N15 south of Lifford, where a short connector road is planned to join it to the proposed A5 in Northern Ireland.

The scheme is one element of three schemes being taken forward together as a single project, the other two being the N13/N15 Ballbofey/Stranorlar Bypass and N56/N13 Letterkenny to Manorcunningham upgrades.

Updates

26 Jul 2024: The Irish Cabinet yesterday finally approved this scheme, later than anticipated in the previous update. The scheme – and the two other Donegal TEN-T schemes which have been approved too – will now move to the planning and procurement processes. Subject to all going to plan with these processes, construction is anticipated to get underway in 2028, i.e. four years from now. The government has also said that it will be revising the cost estimates in due course, as the current estimate of €180-220m dates from 2022 and the rate of construction inflation has been quite high in the past few years. With thanks to Paul McCloskey for giving me the heads up about this decision.

8 Mar 2024: On 22 February - the day after my last update - Transport Infrastructure Ireland issued their 2024 financial allocations for local councils. It included an allocation of €2.02m for the three TEN-T projects in Donegal (this one and two others). A different press release, issued on 14 February, confirmed that (as we knew) the Business Case was submitted in June 2023, and that the assessment of this is still ongoing. There is still no word on that – I am not sure why, as it had been expected by now.

21 Feb 2024: Yesterday the Irish government announced funding for various cross-border schemes, and this scheme (and the two other Donegal Ten-T schemes) got a mention. No specific funding amount was given, other than linking it to the €600m contribution to upgrading the A5 in Northern Ireland, so it sounds like the commitment is to continue the planning process for the scheme. So I don't read this as a plan to construct in the near future. And, off course, the southern end of the scheme at Lifford won't work without a road to connect it to on the Tyrone side, and at present there is still no funding to build the part of the A5 (Phase 2) that it would connect to. This may mean a temporary terminus at Lifford would be necessary if it the N14 upgrade happened before the A5 south of Strabane was upgraded. Such a terminus would probably be the planned roundabout on the N15 south of Lifford, with the bridge over to the A5 following later. There is still no word on the Irish government signing off on the business case for the scheme, something that we had expected before the end of 2023. Certainly nothing has changed on the official web site in recent months.

6 Oct 2023: As with the first two Donegal schemes I covered, the first point to make is that this is my first attempt to follow a scheme outside Northern Ireland, so if I have made any basic errors please be gentle and let me know roads at wesleyjohnston.com! At this stage the scheme has a detailed design (see here) but construction is unlikely to begin before 2026. The next couple of years will need to see the scheme taken through the process to obtain planning permission. The scheme also needs a business case signed off, which is expected sometime this year. The current cost estimate is €180m-€220m at 2022 prices but this is likely to rise due to the recent surge in construction inflation. A reminder that the excellent JP Dowling over at Irish Motorway Info maintains information on new roads across the whole of the Republic.