Major projects shelved as €10bn cut from spend

THE Government has slashed over €10 billion from the planned spend on roads, railways, schools and other infrastructure for the next five years.

Major projects such as the Metro North linking Dublin city centre to the airport, the Cork-Limerick motorway and the Thornton Hall prison have been mothballed.

But the Government says the National Children’s Hospital will go ahead and be completed in 2015, although it will be heavily dependent on money raised from the new National Lottery licence.

The so-called Luas “BXD” project, which will run from Dublin’s Stephen’s Green to O’Connell Street and link the two existing Luas lines, will also go ahead, although construction is unlikely to start before 2015.

Details of the spending plans were contained in the coalition’s five-year infrastructural and capital investment framework, which was published yesterday.

In all, the coalition said €17bn would be invested between 2012 and 2016.

This is a significant reduction on the €27.5bn which the previous government pledged for the same period when it published its plan in July of last year.

But Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the framework was based on what the country could now afford. He also said the Government would seek private investment for additional projects.

“I would love to be able to say today that all the projects we would like to go ahead with are proceeding, but the reality is that the country simply cannot afford to do everything we want to do.

“This plan is based on what the country can afford. We have prioritised the investments that are most needed. Some other, very good projects have to be changed, or put on hold until the public finances have improved.”

He said the framework was a “realistic plan” that would help “get Ireland working again”.

But the Opposition accused the coalition parties of reneging on their election promises, which in Fine Gael’s case included a plan to invest heavily in infrastructure to create over 100,000 jobs.

Fianna Fáil transport spokesman Timmy Dooley said the framework was a “slap in the face” to those out of work. Sinn Féin enterprise spokesman Peadar Toibin said this year’s capital cut of €750m would alone cost 7,500 jobs.

A Government TD, Labour’s Brendan Ryan, was among those expressing disappointment at the deferral of Metro North.

But Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin defended the Government’s choices, saying the coalition had prioritised “jobs, school and health”.

He said his department would be open to innovative ways of funding projects, citing the children’s hospital as an example.

The hospital will be funded with part of the proceeds from a new licensing arrangement for the National Lottery, which will see the licence winner make a significant “upfront” payment in return for better terms.