Road-building programme on target, says NRA

Just two new national road schemes will begin this year, but the State's road-building programme is still on target, the National Roads Authority insisted yesterday.

Launching the authority's Review of 2001 and Programme for 2002 the authority's chief executive Mr Michael Tobin acknowledged that the Ashford/Rathnew by-pass in Co Wicklow, and the Ballincollig by-pass in Co Cork were the only new schemes which would begin construction this year.

However, he insisted that there was no slowdown in the road-building programme pointing out that the authority currently has 16 major road schemes underway, 10 of which will be completed in 2002.

He maintained that construction on the inter-urban motorways from Dublin to the Border and the regional cities of Galway, Limerick, Cork and Waterford was on schedule despite the farmers' protests last year which he said delayed work in some areas by up to one year.

He confirmed that the NRA is to spend more than €1 billion in 2002 - its largest annual allocation to date. Major ongoing projects include the inter-urban routes and the elimination of the "roundabout junctions" on the M50, Dublin's ring route.

Under an ambitious plan to improve traffic flows between the M50 and the major routes out of Dublin each junction is being redesigned to create non-stop traffic flows. The capacity of the ring route is also being increased to three lanes. In all, the improvements to the M50 are expected to cost €381 million.

Other major projects each costing in the region of €500 million are the South Eastern Motorway (SEM) and the Dublin Port Tunnel. The authority also revealed that the SEM may open in sections - the first of which would be from Ballinteer to Leopardstown, before the final completion date of 2004. The authority is also undertaking a feasibility study on the Dublin Eastern by-pass, on behalf of the Goverment. This project would be expected to cost about €1 billion in total.

However, the authority has a "shelf" of 75 schemes in planning which require finance to progress to the construction stage, acknowledged Mr Tobin.

The Construction Industry Federation maintains this is evidence that the allocation for 2002, is inadequate to fund existing work in progress and commence new projects which have come through design and regulatory processes.

It maintains the original cost estimates for the roads programme were too low and cites six reasons for this. These are: additional projects were added in after the original estimates were calculated; projects have had their specifications raised; land acquisition costs rose greatly; ecological, architectural, environmental, legal, planning and design costs, all rose; actual construction cost inflation is a factor.

The CIF says the programme is now underfunded to the tune of €2 billion but the roads authority points out inflation in the construction industry was at 15 per cent in 1999 and 2000. The authority says the interest of foreign companies in the tendering process should further reduce the inflation aspect.