Madam, – Recently a deal was signed by the National Roads Authority (NRA) to build three motorway service stations costing €120 million (Home News, October 6th). I think the cost, at most, should be about €12 million.
All three service stations are hardly 60 miles from Dublin, which is strange in itself. Why did they not build one in the south or one in the west of the country? They should have let the oil companies and the fast-food outlets do the job and use the money for better public transport.
They are to spend €20 million on land? Surely this is an inflated price for land in these times of recession.
The Bank of Ireland is to provide €70 million to Superstop towards this venture, yet this is one of the banks we are stuffing money into. It does seem that no lessons have been learned and that the NRA is living in a time warp as they hand over €47 million of our money.
They say they will employ 500 people in building the three service stations. In one’s wildest dreams one cannot imagine how it could take so many people to do such a small job with today’s modern machinery. They also say 250 jobs will be established when the stations are open. Who are they kidding?
I would love to know how the NRA came up with the above figures? I am sure there are plenty of medium-sized builders who would do the job for €4 million and have some change left over.
– Yours, etc,