The National Roads Authority has said it cannot accede to the request from the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, to substantially complete motorways from Dublin to Cork and Galway by 2008, without an additional €2 billion in funding.
The authority has also told Mr Brennan that it wants a change in its status from "finance agency" to "delivery agency" to allow it to join or replace county councils as the commissioning agency for new roads.
In a strongly-worded message to the Minister, the authority's chairman, Mr Peter Malone, said it wanted "an answer yesterday" on additional funding to prioritise the roads to Dublin and to Galway. Without it, he insisted, the roads would not be completed until 2010.
Speaking at the launch of the National Roads Authority Annual Report 2003 and Programme for 2004, Mr Malone also said that the south-eastern motorway in south Co Dublin would open by next December, with the exception of a 150-metre section at Carrickmines. While Mr Malone said the opening would allow Christmas racegoers to use the motorway to get to the Leopardstown course, the Carrickmines link would remain closed pending the enactment of new legislation recommended by the courts.
He said it was up to the Government to introduce legislation to allow work to proceed at Carrickmines Castle and to "prevent similar delays elsewhere". Mr Malone mentioned, in particular, the M3 Dublin to Kells motorway which he said had been described by its opponents as crossing close to the Hill of Tara.
In fact, he said, the new motorway passed west of Dunshaughlin and Navan in Co Meath but had been deliberately designed to swing north-east away from the Hill of Tara and was now routed "twice the distance from the Hill of Tara as the current N3". He criticised the media which he said "listened to those who make noise, but not those who operate quietly" on the subject of the M3.
The authority has already submitted its plans to raise the €2 billion funding to Mr Brennan. It has proposed, in association with the National Development Finance Agency, to establish up to nine new tolls, giving a maximum of 11, which it would then effectively mortgage, to release "the money we need now".
The plan envisages the Minister "securitising" the annual €8 million a year the State received from the Westlink in a mortgage-like arrangement, which would produce about €450 million.
Similar mortgage arrangements could be put in place using the toll at the Drogheda bypass. The plan also seeks to raise additional revenues from tolls on the Drogheda bypass; Clonee to Kells route; Kinnegad to Kilcock; N7 at Newbridge; N2 at Ashbourne; Waterford bypass; Jack Lynch Tunnel in Cork; Fermoy bypass; Limerick/Shannon crossing and Oranmore bypass on the N6.