THE drainage of the Boyle and Bonet rivers in Sligo and Roscommon by the Office of Public. Works cost nearly twice as much as estimated, a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, has found.
It also took years longer to carry out than planned. The Value for Money examination, published on Thursday, found that a total of £31.6 million was spent on the schemes between 1982 and 1995. The estimated cost in 1982 was £17 million.
When the schemes were stopped, about 85 per cent of the work originally planned had been carried out, on the basis that 88 per cent of the flood damaged land around the rivers could support extra livestock when it was drained by the landowners.
"It is estimated that less than 25 per cent of the damaged agricultural land shows evidence of significant improvement, suggesting that very little field drainage work has been carried out," the report said.
The Comptroller's report said the estimated cost of the 85 per cent of planned work carried out was £14.5 million at 1982 prices. Inflation accounted for almost a third of the difference and the remainder of the increase was due to extra spending on overheads, required because of the additional time needed to do the job.
The report said that the OPW had indicated to the Department of Finance that its policy of restricting annual funding for drainage schemes would result in inefficient use of overheads and increased costs.
It said the cost per hectare of land to be improved by the Bonet scheme was higher than for any other arterial drainage scheme the OPW had carried out.
The report said much more rigorous evaluation criteria had been applied to prospective arterial drainage projects since 1986 and no new schemes had been undertaken since that date. None was envisaged in the foreseeable future.