Funding for bypass is 'rock solid' says minister

THE Government’s funding guarantee for the city’s outer by pass – estimated to cost more than €320m – remains “absolutely rock solid”, Minister Éamon Ó Cuív, has told the Galway City Tribune.The Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Minister, told this newspaper yesterday that there was no deviation at Cabinet level as to the top priority status which the outer bypass enjoyed, despite the current financial climate.“While the issue may currently be bogged down on legal and planning issues, the Government is committed 100% to the construction of the city’s outer bypass.“The case for it is irrefutable. How can businesses from Knocknacarra and Barna, back to Clifden, continue to survive when they have to, on a daily basis, survive an hour long journey through the city?“Someone leaving the eastern fringe of the city would be more than half way to Dublin by the time another commuter would have made it from Knocknacarra to Oranmore. “This has to change – Galway has to move on. We cannot be left behind. Just look this week at the difference that the new bypass has made to the South-East. The city is being clogged up with traffic, much of which doesn’t need to be going through the urban centre,” said Minister Ó Cuív.He also told the Galway City Tribune that the Government was working very diligently behind the scenes to ensure that the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) would be involved at a very early planning stage in new road development. “We just cannot have the NPWS coming in at a very late stage and saying 'this’ is what they don’t want. I, and the Government, want the NPWS to be involved from the start and say what they do want.“They must engage far earlier in the process in a positive fashion and bring their views forwards through a negotiation process rather than a confrontational one. This system needs to be put in place,” said Minister Ó Cuív.He also said that he wanted to make it clear that the function of the Attorney General in any current cases before the High Court was purely on the basis of providing the best legal advice for the Government. But Minister Ó Cuív indicated that his “gut feeling” on the overall legal wrangles surrounding the project was that it might take a ruling at European level to lay down a “once-and- for-all precedent”.What had to be resolved, he added, was whether the process could be taken directly at this stage to the European Justice or Commission level, or whether it would have go through the Irish SupremeCourt first. “While I welcome the latest High Court decision clearing the way for the eastern section of the bypass to go ahead, this looks as if it will go further,” said Minister Ó Cuív. The €600m Waterford bypass was opened last week by Minister Martin Cullen, while the €800m Limerick Tunnel project is due for completion early next year – backers of the Galway bypass are adamant that this project could also have been happening at the same time, only for the objections and legal wrangles. The 22km bypass is proposed to run from the M6 between Doughiska and Briar Hill to the Spiddal Road between Barna and Furbo, with a new fifth bridge over the Corrib.