The Government could make an immediate capital saving of €3 billion by scaling down the roads programme envisaged under the National Development Plan, according to an analysis by its opponents.
The Campaign for Sensible Transport (CaST), an umbrella organisation formed by 20 action groups opposing the NDP's planned motorways, said savings on such a scale would wipe out the Budget deficits for 2002 and 2003.
And since tolls would be charged on the motorways or "high-quality dual carriageways", CaST calculated that Irish road-users would also save €14 billion on toll charges over the next 30 years, equivalent to €1.3 million a day.
In a 53-page report entitled The €12 Billion NDP Road Spend Frenzy, CaST said the priority should be to proceed with the bypass schemes for towns on existing national routes, identified in the 1998 National Roads Needs Study.
It called for all road projects which do not meet the criteria laid down in this National Roads Authority study to be halted pending an independent audit, similar to the High Point Rendel report earlier this year on Sports Campus Ireland.
CaST said its €12 billion estimate for the motorways and dual carriageways planned by the NRA, based on recent briefings by the Department of Finance, was double the original estimate given in 1999 when the NDP was published.
"All types of infrastructure funding for hospitals, schools and housing are likely to be usurped by the financial appetite of 900 kilometres of motorways," which would involve acquiring 6,545 acres of land at an estimated cost of €273 million, it said.
According to CaST, the NRA's "motorway lock-in philosophy" would also have adverse effects on the Government's ability to finance public transport initiatives, such as the proposed metro for Dublin and plans to upgrade the rail network.
Because of the downturn in Exchequer resources, the NRA's "blind implementation" of the motorway programme envisaged by the NDP had run into "serious delivery and financial difficulties" which could not be solved by public-private partnerships (PPPs).
CaST said private-sector funding from PPPs was unlikely to bridge the funding gap. It would generate a net investment of just €300 million as 80 per cent of the anticipated PPP finance would be consumed in constructing and operating toll booths.
But the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, warned that up to 1,500 homes would have to be demolished to improve existing national routes, in line with the Roads Needs Study. "What we're trying to do is to get value for money by long-term planning," he said.
He told The Irish Times that governments in the past had been criticised for not investing adequately in roads, which was why the M50 and its roundabout interchanges were so congested.
"Having made that mistake once, we don't want to do it again," he added.