Minister announces record €495m roads plan

The Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche, revealed a record €495 million spending plan for non-national roads yesterday.

Announcing the plan to the State's local authorities, the Minister defended the decision to allocate one of the largest increases - almost 15 per cent - to his home constituency of Wicklow.

He claimed the county was one of several to receive special funding aimed at bringing regional and county roads to an acceptable standard.

Citing a new "national pavement study", the Minister said the policy of making extra money available for the "targeting of certain counties which were shown to be sub-standard" had worked, and he intended to redirect State spending to counties in greatest need.

Mr Roche made more than €423 million available to the State's 29 county councils; almost €37 million to city councils in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford; and almost €19 million to the borough and town councils. A special remedial budget is set at €9 million, while €6 million will be provided by the Department of Community and Gaeltacht Affairs. And €1.5 million is being allocated for training programmes for local authority staff.

The Minister said the money, which he said was being raised without recourse to an increase in car tax, would add to the "significant improvements" over recent years which had made "the non-national roads measure one of the major success stories of the National Development Plan".

While most of the money will be spent on road-building, some projects, particularly in cities, were more varied. A spokesman said Dublin City Council, for instance, would be spending €5 million on starting construction of a bridge across the Liffey at Macken Street, leading to the refurbished docklands. The bridge will reduce traffic pressures in the city centre.

Among the county councils that saw their funding drop on last year were South Dublin, whose 2004 allowance has been cut by 32 per cent; Fingal, by 27 per cent; Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, by 3 per cent; and Cork, by almost 19 per cent.

Waterford's city and county councils saw their allowances cut by almost 13 per cent and 1.6 per cent respectively. Waterford is the constituency of the former minister for the environment, now Minister for Transport, Mr Cullen. Monies allocated towards constructing the national route city bypass in Waterford were recently transferred to other projects because of delays to the scheme.

Limerick saw its budget fall by 1 per cent while Galway saw an increase of around 14 per cent.

Pressed on the size of the increase in funding for Co Wicklow - the total for the county will be €13 million when allowances to Wicklow, Bray and Arklow town councils are included - Mr Roche said the county had been neglected. Among his priorities for the year was the progression of a new port access road for Wicklow, a project which was identified for funding of €3 million, he said.

But the Minister pointed to other counties, such as Carlow and Wexford, which had fared better than Wicklow in percentage terms. He said a cut in money to a local authority could indicate that its work on the roads had been done.

"I am taking the opportunity to refocus priority investment to areas of most need as shown in the preliminary results of my Department's study on road paving conditions," he said.