Key road projects postponed

SIX major road projects due to get under way over the next two years have been postponed due to budget cutbacks.

Other under-threat projects such as the metro in Dublin are going ahead, although Transport Minister Noel Dempsey indicated some could face delays. But six national route projects, in Dublin, Wicklow, Cork, Longford, Kerry and Galway, will hit the buffers because of budgetary constraints.

The routes are: N11 — Arklow-Rathnew dual carriageway. N25 — Carrigtwohill-Midleton upgrade. N5 — Longford bypass. N21 — Castleisland bypass. N7 — Newlands Cross upgrade. N18 — Oranmore-Gort dual carriageway.

Most of the projects under the control of the National Roads Authority were only at the preliminary design stage, while the bypass of Castleisland, Co Kerry, is at tender stage.

Expenditure on road projects is to fall by 7% next year to €2.1 billion, although plans remain on target to have all five major inter-urban routes linking Dublin and the regional centres completed by 2010.

Mr Dempsey stressed work would continue on critical public transport projects, including Metro North, the Western Rail Corridor and the Dart interconnector.

“There is no question of cancelling Transport 21 projects despite the more constrained economic circumstances in which we find ourselves today,” said Mr Dempsey.

But the minister conceded that some projects would be rolled out “at a slower pace than we had originally intended”.

Doubts remain over whether other large-scale public transport projects, such as the Luas line to Lucan and Metro West linking Tallaght and Dublin Airport, will go ahead as scheduled after Mr Dempsey only committed the Government to bringing such initiatives up to tender stage.

He confirmed that three other major projects would be completed in 2009 — the Luas extension to the Dublin Docklands, the re-opening of the Ennis-Athenry section of the Western Rail Corridor and the re-opening of the Cork-Midleton railway line.

Mr Dempsey also said that the Government planned to establish a new National Transport Authority, which would include the amalgamation of the Dublin Transport Office and the Commission for Taxi Regulation.