Over €1.2 billion earmarked for roads

Transport: More than half the entire estimate for the Department of Transport next year - about €1.2 billion - is to be spent on 27 major road projects.

Some 11 of those schemes will be complete in 2003, and 11 new ones will be started in 2004, the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, said yesterday, emphasising that what he said was the continuity of his Department's spending plans.

It was the third successive year that national roads funding has topped the €1.2 billion figure.

Mr Brennan remarked that he had achieved agreement in principle with the Department of Finance to maintain the level of investment over the coming five years, investing a further €6 billion.

The Minister also published the list of the 11 new schemes which include long-awaited bypasses of Ennis in Co Clare, Loughrea in Co Galway and Waterford city.

The total allocation for public transport is €646 million, more than €260 million of this as a subvention to CIE, an increase of 6 per cent.

Mr Brennan said that over the last five years much of the investment in railways had gone into track renewal which was not immediately visible to the travelling public.

However, 40 more new Dart cars would arrive in 2004, and 80 new diesel rail cars would increase frequency on commuter and inter-city services.

About €40 million has been provided for the Dublin Transportation Office which the Minister said would be used to double the number of bus lanes in Dublin.

Additional bus lanes will be provided in Galway, Cork, Limerick and Waterford.

Luas will receive its 2004 share of multi-annual funding of €125 million, but the figures indicate a cut in the Railway Procurement Agency's administration and expenses from €12.5 million to €10.5 million.

Regional airports were another loser, with funding being cut from by 21 per cent to €22.5 million.

The cut was criticised by the Fine Gael spokesman on transport, Mr Denis Naughten, who said: "It seems as if the results of a review of regional airport funding has already been decided".

Mr Naughten was also critical of the roads allocation, pointing out that it represented, after inflation, a cut in the investment programme.

"The estimate is meaningless, as it clearly has no correlation to the delivery of projects. There has been a 13 per cent overspend," he said, and he insisted that the programme would not be finished until 2013.

He also said the figures for the Railway Procurement Agency indicated that Mr Brennan's "pet project, a Dublin Airport metro", had been shelved.

The Labour Party spokeswoman on transport, Ms Roisín Shortall, said the estimate meant that the public could expect no improvement in the quality of public transport services over the next 12 months, and there was a possibility that services might even deteriorate.