TD labels new proposals on bypass as ‘madness’

Six route options for the new city ring road are being considered and as many as 130 homes and some businesses may have to be demolished under the plans, which could cost up to €750 million.

Fine Gael Deputy Brian Walsh said Menlo and Barna villages would be damaged or destroyed under the proposals, and landmarks such as Ballybrit Racecourse would be substantially compromised.

He wants planners to scrap the new routes and go back to a variation of the old bypass route. Several city councillors at Monday’s meeting argued the same, but the official leading the project, senior engineer Michael Timmins of Galway County Council, says the old route was rejected in the courts and cannot be used again because it will be rejected again.

“The original bypass was stopped because it threatened to damage bog cotton,” said Deputy Walsh, “but there appears to be no such reservations about bulldozing people’s homes.

“The routes that have now been presented are utterly outlandish. They would destroy villages, homes, and public amenities; steamrolling the city and plunging it into chaos for years during construction,” said Deputy Walsh.

“On top of that, the projected costs associated with these routes are completely unfeasible. A variation of the original GCOB that could be progressed under IROPI would present an alternative that could be completed quicker and at a fraction of the cost of what is now being proposed,” he said.

The IROPI planning process allows authorities to apply for permission to develop infrastructure notwithstanding its impact on environmentally sensitive sites where there are Imperative Reasons of Overriding Public Interest (IROPI).

“It is preposterous that we’re talking about putting people out of their homes for the sake of a small area of limestone paving and some bog cotton. This has to be about people, not plants or paving,” added Deputy Walsh.

Speaking after public consultation meetings, Mr Timmins explained that it was not possible to revisit the ‘old’ route as part of the new proposals for a bypass.

He said if the old route is resubmitted, it would once again be rejected out of hand by European and Irish courts. It’s a non-runner, he said, which is why the Council has come up with five new route corridors.

“You cannot use the old route because the old route has been rejected by the Supreme Court on foot of an opinion from the European Court and you cannot come back with the old route again or it will be rejected by the courts again,” insisted Mr Timmins. He said they were forced to examine new routes in order to prove that they had exhausted all avenues.

“An Bórd Pleanála rejected the western wing of the bypass from the N59 to the R336 at Barna, and the Supreme quashed the remainder of the route. The problem is, if you wish to go forward with a new route where you want to use the process of getting the opinion of the European Commission to support your route, you must show it is the least damaging alternative.

“You cannot just pick a route and say to the European Court, ‘please give us an opinion to allow us to build on this’. No, they’ll say ‘you shouldn’t be here at all, you shouldn’t have damaged the environment’. So you must examine other options to the old route.”