Extreme weather made N80 Laois road crack open with 'emergency repairs' ahead
Portlaoise to Mountmellick main road ‘failed’ in section crossing a bog blamed on ‘extreme weather’
Extreme weather in 2026 has caused a busy main road in Laois to literally crack open and fail.
Sections of the N80 Portlaoise to Mountmellick N80 ‘bog road’ will undergo emergency road repairs this November.
Motorists can expect some delays while the works are underway.
The road has “failed” in the section where it crosses Clonreher bog, which shrank during the long hot summer and is now swelling again with rains.
Laois County Council will do the repairs within the coming weeks, after getting emergency funding from Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) which is responsible for national roads.
The new cracks on the busy narrow road were highlighted by the Leinster Express / Laois Live in October, with our photographs showing long cracks along the edge and the centre of the road, near the Kyletalesha recycling centre junction.
Director of Services Simon Walton has defended the millions spent on the road to resurface it in recent years.
“Obviously it was the extremely dry summer, and as Cllr Fitzgerald says, it is a road on a bog. It’s not the first road that has failed in a localised area, having regard to the bog foundation.
“The important thing is we engaged promptly with the TII and they agreed that remediation works be carried out. Arrangement are in hand to have those works completed in coming weeks.
“There was a significant investment in the road, but it is a localised area. It was worth the investment for the enhancement of the road,” Mr Walton said.
Cllr Paddy Buggy had raised the issue by tabling a motion to the Portlaoise Municipal District’s October meeting, asking the council to ask the TII to do urgent repairs on the “subsiding” road with a “major break” in its surface.
“I did see the lads doing the survey, I congratulate the council on acting so quickly to try get this resolved. It is a problem, a good few people are giving out, it is dangerous.
“I’m not an engineer but it’s awful pity that the road that was there was dug up first, you had a foundation to build on that would have strengthened it, but I welcome that it’s going to be done,” he said.
Cllr Catherine Fitzgerald had noted that “it’s an awful lot of money spent on a bog road at the end of the day, and here we are going back to do it again”.
The particular stretch of road was closed for almost a month in 2023 for a resurfacing job.