NRA defends €1.3bn outlay on highways

The Republic's longest inter-urban motorway - a 72km route between Santry in north Dublin and Dundalk, due to open this summer - will herald the benefits of spending on major roads, the National Roads Authority said yesterday.

The authority, which will spend €1.3 billion this year, said that while the National Development Plan target of building inter-urban motorways between Dublin and the regional cities by 2007 would not be met, "most of those roads will be substantially in place by that time".

The authority defended itself against criticism of cost overruns in the construction industry, and revealed it had introduced a new type of construction contract, "Design and Build", aimed at transferring some of the risks from local authorities to the contractor.

Seven new projects are to be built using such contracts: bypasses for Dundalk (western), Carrickmacross, Kilcock-Kinnegad, Monasterevin, Cashel, Waterford and improvements to the Naas Road in Dublin.

The authority also said greater interest from international consortiums had widened the base from which it could select a tender, and price competitiveness had already begun with the Monasterevin and Cashel bypasses.

Presenting the authority's annual report for 2002 and its programme of work for this year, Mr Michael Egan, corporate affairs director of the authority, said future work would concentrate on a hierarchy of road-building to remove traditional black spots.

In future contracts, public-private partnerships (PPPs) would create opportunities for limiting the State's exposure to spiralling costs.

Mr Gerry Murphy, the authority's spokesman on PPPs, said the construction of the Kilcock-Kinnegad bypass, which is expected to begin within weeks, would have cost the authority about €555 million to develop in the standard fashion.

With the PPP contract, the State's costs would be limited to €146 million during construction and €6 million during the lifetime of the concession period.

In addition the State would receive a share of the toll, as well as corporation tax, VAT on the tolls and non-recoverable receipts, as well as rates to the various local authorities whose lands were traversed.

It was, said Mr Peter Malone, chairman of the NRA, "a very, very good deal for the State - and that is all of us". Mr Malone added, however, that while last year he had been happy to get extra money in his budget from Government, this year his wish was for a multi-annual allocation.

"As a businessman, I can see the need for certainty in relation to how much the authority can spend next year and the year after that," he said.

It was also revealed that more than 20 projects are currently ready to start and are awaiting finance.

In all more than 100 projects are being advanced from route selection to completion; and projects expected to go to tender this year include: a tunnel under the Shannon at Limerick, the Ballinasloe bypass on the N6 road to Galway, and the Clonee-Kells motorway in Co Meath.

Summing up the authority's programme for the coming years, Mr Egan said the "primary problem" was still one of funding. "We are playing catch-up in this country."

In a related move, the authority's chief executive, Mr Michael Tobin, said offers from a consortium of property developers to lend the NRA the money to build an under-pass at Kilpedder on the N11 in Wicklow "appeared to have gone cold".

Mr Tobin said he had heard of the offer through Wicklow County Council and, while the authority was amenable to the idea in principle, nothing had been heard of the offer for some time.