Council still confident of NRA money for N5

Council still confident of NRA money for N5


Anton McNulty

A SENIOR Mayo County Council official has said the Council expects to be allowed to spend the money allocated to the county in the National Roads Authority budget for the N5 – despite the Government ordering a halt to spending on almost 80 national road-building schemes.
Last week, it was reported that the NRA were told by the Government that they were forbidden from spending on all capital projects which were not already under way, unless each project was individually sanctioned by the Department of Finance. The projects affected included four schemes along the N5 from Longford to Westport.
In the last NRA budget, Mayo received €2.5 million for the new N5 Westport to Bohola road, which has recently had its preferred route adopted by the Council. Mr Joe Beirne, Director of Services with Mayo County Council, told The Mayo News that the Council has not been told anything regarding its allocation and expects to be allowed to spend the money to bring the road to CPO stage for next year.
However, Mr Beirne said that phase two of the N26 from Ballina to Bohola was ‘going nowhere’ until An Bord Pleanála deals with the Environmental Impact Study (EIS), which started over 12 months ago. He said in the best-case scenario, construction stage for the N5 would begin in 2013 at the earliest, but because of the cut-backs expects Mayo projects to be put further down the queue.
“We have not been told anything about our allocation for the N5 and until we are told anything to the contrary I presume we will be allowed to spend money to allow it to go for CPO next year. I don’t know how this will affect us but in Mayo there is not too much to stop. The N26 is number one to go to contract but that is going nowhere until An Bord Pleanála deals with the EIS.
“Before the cut-backs, there was a €200 million cut in the NRA budget, and all the Mayo schemes will have gone further down the queue. In Galway, the N18 from Oranmore to Gort, which was ahead of us, was shelved, and if that is put back for another year or two we will go back and will be well down,” he said.
The decision by the Government to halt planned spending was labelled as ‘short-sighted’ by Castlebar town councillor, Harry Barrett, because he felt the roads needed to be upgraded to attract industry to Mayo.
“If we had a Government that was concerned with regional development the NRA would move ahead with all improvement schemes on our national primary routes. These improvements are badly needed to attract industry into this county and for the people who pay the same road tax as those living in Dublin. However, Mayo has not been spared. We will now see our national primary routes neglected until further notice. This decision is very short-sighted and counter productive,” said the Labour councillor.