The Coalition Government's road building programme is a shambles - grossly over budget and running from three to six years late. A campaign by the farming community for higher levels of compensation for land needed to construct the roads was estimated to have delayed projects for about a year. The revision of original road schemes added to the delay.
And a shortage of Government funding linked to spiralling costs within the construction industry, along with vexatious planning objections, rendered the killer blow to it all.
Last year, not a single new road project was started. This year, seven schemes will get under way and it is estimated that a total of €1.26 billion will be spent on motorways and by-passes. Most of that work will take place in already-developed regions, however, and while €445 million will be spent in the Dublin local authority areas, the province of Connacht will get just €68 million.
The Western Development Commission has expressed "strong disappointment" over the allocation of resources to vital road projects. Its chief executive, Ms Lisa McAllister, said the failure to invest in the infrastructure of western counties would perpetuate existing industrial inadequacies.
There is no definite date for the construction of a single major national road in counties Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Mayo, Galway or Clare. The N5 road, which links Dublin and Mayo, is acknowledged to be the worst primary route in the State. Despite the recent designation of Castlebar and Ballina as official growth hubs under the National Spatial Strategy, no major new schemes are due to start this year on upgrading the route.
The rhetoric of this Government, concerning the redress of long-standing inadequacies, has been exposed as a hollow sham.
Last November's spending estimates for 2003 pointed the way forward. The Western Development Fund, from which grant aid for new business projects is drawn, was slashed by 68 per cent. And the Western Development Commission, which researches and co-ordinates such work, had its funding cut by 10 per cent.
It is clear that the Government has abandoned some of its pre-election road promises because of the difficult Exchequer position. It has decided to toll ten new roads across the State in order to raise desperately needed cash. We should have been told last year.