Galway Outer Bypass topped list in tests to establish value for money

I won’t hold my breath for the work to start on the Galway Outer Bypass – but if TD Brian Walsh can wring a promise from the Cabinet ‘tough guy’ Leo Varadkar that the scheme will be included in the national plan to be announced next month, then there is real hope. 

They won’t just elect Brian Walsh, they might canonise him if the road goes ahead and takes the misery out of life for so many motorists. The undertaking Minister Varadkar has given is that the Galway Outer Bypass is one of the key schemes as far as the government is concerned.

Mind you, the government won’t be funding the major plan costing hundreds of millions, those days are gone when the money was sloshing about the place. The most likely financing is through public-private partnership and that the road will be tolled.

The word from Deputy Walsh is that the Galway Outer Bypass was the one which came out on top in tests applied comparing its costs with its efficacy. It came out on top in any number of categories ... but surely, the one most glaringly obvious is the fact that thousands of cars per day make their way unnecessarily through Galway city and at enormous cost in both petrol and patience to Galway and other rmotorists.

Brian Walsh also got confirmation of the degree of priority for the Galway Outer Bypass in a communication from National Roads Authority boss Fred Barry. Said Fred Barry: ”The importance of the scheme is undiminished and we fully share your objective of delivering the scheme as soon as possible.”

Now we know there is a government commitment to building the new road – linking the new Dublin motorway to a new crossing of the River Corrib on the Moycullen side of Glenlo Abbey Hotel – but the real trick is going to be extracting the plan from the legal and planning morass in which it is now bogged down.

This scheme has been fourteen years ‘on the go’ now, and at the moment is stuck between courts here and in Brussels. This part of the plan got planning permission but the permission was appealed to the Irish High Court, then the Irish Supreme Court. The Irish Supreme Court is awaiting guidance from the European Court of Justice on the issue of environmental concerns and how they should be considered. 

Deputy Walsh said this week he would continue to press for progress on the Outer Bypass and he hpped there would be an early ruling from the courts so that, at least, the legal wrangle would be resolved. He said that the scheme had come out of top in tests as to its cost, efficiency, etc, and the government were committed to announcing the Outer Bypass would be part of the national plan, even at a time when other schemes were being cut.

Meanwhile, there seems little doubt that a ‘debate’ will now open on why it has to be a toll road, but we have been down this road before ... the days of billions washing about are gone for good, and my instinct tells me that drivers will pay a toll rather than spend an hour travelling a few hundred yards.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.