The National Roads Authority (NRA) yesterday announced a further eight public-private partnership (PPP) toll-road schemes on national primary routes. However, the projects attracted strong criticism from a leading economist, the road haulage industry and the Automobile Association.
The schemes were described by the NRA as "a significant advance in the plans to utilise the PPP approach" for major infrastructural schemes. The eight new schemes, together with three existing pilot projects, involve a total roadway length of 230 km, at a projected cost of £1.03 billion, with a potential private finance input of about £700 million.
The eight new projects are:
Dundalk western bypass on the N1/M1 route, incorporating tolling of the Boyne Bridge (11 km);
Clonee-Kells on the N3 Dublin-Monaghan route (45 km);
Kilcock-Kinnegad and Oran more on the N4 Galway-Dublin route (59 km);
Portlaoise-Castletown and Nenagh-Limerick on the N7 Limerick-Dublin route (50 km);
Portlaoise-Culahill and the Fermoy bypass on the N8 Cork-Dublin route (39 km).
The three pilot projects - the N25 Waterford bypass, the Limerick southern ring, phase 2, and a second Liffey Valley bridge on the M50 - are already under development.
"All these PPP road schemes will be design/build/finance/operate contracts, with a long-term concession period in the order of 30 years, during which the concessionaire will recoup the upfront construction costs and ongoing operation/road maintenance costs by the collection of tolls," the NRA said.
But a leading ESRI economist, Mr John Fitzgerald, was critical of the proposed PPP contracts, claiming it was inappropriate for private-sector money to be used.
"The money should come from the State," he said. There was no reason why the Exchequer should not provide funding, he added, when it was flush with money.
Mr Gerry McMahon, president of the Irish Road Haulage Association, said road hauliers were not in favour of the toll roads.
"Costs are escalating dramatically. Most people in the business already find it difficult to pass on increases as it is," he said. The AA denounced the tollroads proposal as "a billion pound blunder". It meant that "ordinary road-users" would face toll charges right across the State on roads built under the National Development Plan.
"It is a new and unjustified tax on road use," said Mr Conor Faughnan, the AA's public affairs manager.
"It is also environmentally daft because the imposition of tolls will divert traffic off the new bypasses and back on to the streets of the towns and villages that we are supposed to be relieving."
IBEC, the employers' body, welcomed the NRA proposal and urged the Minister for the Environment and Rural Development, Mr Dempsey, to designate the eastern relief route in Dublin as a PPP project without delay.
"If the construction of this project was accelerated . . . traffic in Dublin would be calmed to such an extent that the public transport infrastructure which is needed could be built with the minimum of disruption to economic activity in and around the capital," IBEC said.