Budget 2018: Sharp rise in capital spending on roads and schools

Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe has increased capital spending, including spending on schools, hospitals and roads, in Budget 2018 by €790 million.

This rise will bring total spending on projects, including the widening of the M7 motorway and the National Indoor Arena in Blanchardstown, Dublin, to €5.3 billion in 2018.

Mr Donohoe said infrastructure investment was “central to our response to Brexit and will allow our State, and its agencies, to properly plan major infrastructure projects over the medium-term while also ensuring communities and businesses can plan ahead”.

He said a number of key projects were “already having a real impact on improving people’s lives” and he instanced the recent opening of the Gort and Tuam motorway in Co Galway, a new emergency department at Limerick University Hospital and the renovated Pairc Uí Chaoimh in Cork.

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“In Dublin, the Luas Cross City will soon begin to carry its first passengers,” he added.

“This increased investment will deliver better public services, promote regional economic growth, and help address challenges such as Brexit and climate change,” he said.

While the funding was welcomed by Engineers Ireland, the representative body for engineers, it also said Mr Donohoe should have gone further and set up a single unit to manage infrastructure spending across all departments.

Energy-efficient programmes

The engineers also said they favoured the budget provisions for expansion of energy-efficiency programmes at a cost of €36 million and the rollout of the Renewable Heat Incentive, and incentives for the uptake of electric vehicles which had been costed at €17 million.

Other measures in the budget which the engineers welcomed were €15 million for the procurement process for the National Broadband Plan, increased support for public transport services at a cost of €9.6 million and educational programmes costing €4.5 million.

Caroline Spillane, director general of Engineers Ireland, said: “Long-term investment planning, connected to longer-term spatial planning, is vital to ensuring Ireland’s sustainability and prosperity.”

She added: “Engineers Ireland believes the Government should go a step further and establish a single infrastructure unit to co-ordinate capital projects across Government departments and State agencies.”

Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Shane Ross also welcomed the increased allocation to the Department of Transport which he said would be used to address “emerging capacity constraints on our public transport systems”.

He said the money would provide for a “step-up investment in climate-friendly and sustainable transport solutions as well as removing bottlenecks in the existing road network”.

‘Ambitious projects’

Mr Ross said he was “delighted to be in a position to be able to announce ambitious projects including a spend of over €100 million on vital local and national sports infrastructure, investment of over €30 million in the development of greenways to bring tourism benefits to regional locations and sustainable commuting by cycling or walking in urban areas to a value of €80 million over the period.”

However, Verona Murphy of the Irish Road Haulage Association said the budget failed to deliver “rebates for the effective increase in road tolls by Transport Infrastructure Ireland and a new fuel rebate system at meaningful levels”.

The Irish Electric Vehicle Owners Association said Budget 2018 was “a missed opportunity to encourage the switch to electric vehicles” .

It said the 0 per cent “benefit-in-kind” relief on such vehicles had been “bizarrely limited to one year”, whereas most company cars are purchased on a three- to four-year lease.

“Take-up will correspondingly be very low and the incentive will have little effect. Simple cost-effective incentives like zero tolls or zero motor tax have not been considered, yet would be been very low cost to the exchequer while offering savings to the electric motorist,” it said.