Court rejects belated SIAC claim

The High Court has ruled that SIAC Construction Ltd cannot pursue a claim for damages against the National Roads Authority (NRA) over the awarding to another company of a €150 million contract for the construction of the Western Dundalk Bypass.

Mr Justice Kelly yesterday upheld a preliminary NRA argument that SIAC was out of time to challenge the decision awarding the contract to Celtic Roads Group.

SIAC, of Monastery Road, Clondalkin, Dublin was a minority member of a consortium, EuroLink, which failed in its bid to construct the bypass.

SIAC's complaints in relation to the award of the contract to Celtic Roads were not supported by EuroLink's majority member, Cintra Concesiones de Infrastructuras de Transport.

In a reserved judgment yesterday on the preliminary issue, Mr Justice Kelly said Cintra had stated it did not agree with SIAC's complaint and had no complaints itself about the transparency or objectivity of the tendering process.

The judge said the National Development Plan 2000-06 included a strategy to improve Ireland's physical infrastructure and €5.59 billion at 1999 prices was planned for road construction. Public-private partnerships were identified in the plan and the Government had set a target of securing €1.27 billion of private finance to supplement the Exchequer and EU investment.

If this was not achieved, large sections of the national roadwork would not be delivered as planned, he said.

Nine road projects were identified by the NRA as being suitable for development by means of public-private partnerships. One of these was the Dundalk western bypass. The object of the 11 kilometre bypass was to complete the motorway between north Dundalk and Gormanston, Co Meath.

The project was being carried out on the basis of a design, build, finance and operate contract, with a 30-year term. Revenue would be derived from tolls.

After 30 years, management of the road and entitlement to the toll would revert to the NRA.

Mr Justice Kelly held that SIAC did not start its legal proceeding at the earliest opportunity. Correspondence demonstrated that SIAC was fully aware of the complaints it had against the NRA months before it instituted proceedings in April 2004.

As of October 14th, 2003, it was clear to SIAC that a decision had been taken to award the contract to Celtic Roads.

SIAC's case was that time began to run on February 5th, 2004 when the NRA signed the contract to Celtic Roads. The judge rejected that argument.