Budget stalls West's transport plans

THE west’s infrastructure took a hammering in Tuesday’s budget with massive cuts in capital expenditure ensuring key transport projects have been 'blown out of the water’ while others have been put on the long finger indefinitely.Capital funding cuts have forced the head of the National Roads Authority to admit that many vital roads projects throughout Galway will be delayed or 'paused’ while plans to decentralise jobs to Clifden and Ballinasloe have been abandoned.A crunch NRA meeting will take place in November when the fate of vital roads infrastructure projects in Galway will be decided however there are already serious concerns that the axe could fall on projects such as the N17, N18 and Tuam and Claregalway Bypasses. Following the Budget the Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey announced that the start date for building work on N18 Gort to Oranmore Road, a project which was due to start this year, has been delayed until 2010 at the earliest which is a crippling blow to the infrastructure, and by extension business, jobs and quality of life, in the West.And there are now real fears that start dates for vital projects such as the new M17 from Rathmorrissey (near Athenry) to Tuam, the new Tuam Bypass and improvement work on the N59 Clifden to Galway road will be pushed out further while a bypass or an inner relief road of Claregalway now seems certain not to proceed in the lifetime of this Government as promised, if at all.A decision on the €340 million Galway City Outer Bypass is due at the end of this month, and while its future is likely to be decided upon in Europe, the state of the public finances could 'long-finger’ the project even more so than ...