Land, legal fees raised road price ninefold

The cost of Dublin's M50 motorway, which opens after 17 years of construction this week, increased almost ninefold from first phase to last.

The first phase of the Western Parkway, which started construction in 1988, cost €6.8 million per kilometre to complete. In contrast, the final phase of the M50, the South Eastern Motorway, has cost €60 million per kilometre.

At a completion cost of €570 million, the South Eastern Motorway is more expensive than the initial €530 million cost of the Dublin Port Tunnel, and the projected €500 million cost of the 61km Clonee to Kells M3 route in Co Meath.

According to the National Roads Authority (NRA), the construction cost of the motorway was €195 million, one-third of the total cost of the road.

Planning, design, archaeology, consultancy fees and "related small costs" amounted to €75 million. These costs include Supreme Court legal fees in actions involving the controversial property company Jackson Way and a number of cases involving the conservationists known as the Carrickminders.

Land costs, however, added €300 million to the bill, raising the total to €570 million.

Land costs were high because the route of the South Eastern Motorway traverses some of the State's most expensive private and commercial land.

Along the "take" for the road was the five-furlong gallop at Leopardstown racecourse; lands belonging to the Leopardstown Park Hospital; lands of the order of the Legionaries of Christ; and the British ambassador's residence.

Other lands acquired included those at Sandyford Industrial Estate, where prices of €5 million per acre were quoted.

Some 20 acres of land at Carrickmines were the subject of arbitration and hearings at the Mahon, formerly Flood, tribunal. The tribunal accepted that Jackson Way was the beneficial owner of the land and concluded in November 2004 that a solicitor with an address in the Isle of Man, John Caldwell, and his business partner, Jim Kennedy, were most likely to be the beneficial owners of Jackson Way through shareholdings in offshore companies.

An arbitrator awarded the company €13 million in compensation, but the council says it will not pay this until Jackson Way proves its title to the land.

While the legal fees due to the Carrickminders' protest were described as "significant", the protest also delayed the project by a year. Given that construction started in November 2001 and cost €195 million, a year's delay might represent as much as €54 million.

The Carrickmines interchange that sparked the delay will not be completed until October at the earliest. The Supreme Court has yet to rule on a challenge to the National Monuments Act, which could delay it further.

Figures from the NRA indicate that construction price inflation was not the cause of the spiralling cost of the South Eastern Motorway. Rather, it was factors such as land prices and legal challenges, over which the NRA had little or no control.

However Fine Gael's transport spokeswoman Olivia Mitchell said the Government must take the blame for a large proportion of the overruns.