The roads logjam

Pete_Cavan · 18-09-2024 12:14PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122621288#Comment_122621288

I was looking at the TII 2024 allocations. For roads, the only allocations over €4m are;

N55 Corduff to South of Killydoon - Section B €9m

N73 Annakisha South Improvement Scheme €9.4m

N22 Ballyvourney to Macroom €10m

M28 Ringaskiddy/Cork 28 €17.6m

N69 Listowel Bypass €4.5m

N77 Ballyragget Village to Ballynaslee Road Improvement (Minor 2016) €6.2m

Foynes Limerick €24m

M20 Limerick to Cork €4m

N59 Newport to Derrada Realignment €5.58

N60 Heathlawn €5.6m

N51 Dunmoe Phase 2 (2017 Continuation) €4.5m

N5 Ballaghaderreen Bypass to Longford €63m

N16 Lugatober Realignment €9m

There are also lots of pavement projects, plenty of relatively small but some running to a few million, and big greenway allocations. Everything else is consultancy work.

Two of the biggest allocations are M28 and Foynes Limerick, both are for enabling works, archeology, consultants, etc. spread across several contracts, not the works proper. The N22 was completed but there were still some payments and retention due.

Basically there is very little being paid for actual construction this year. It would be practically impossible to have an overspend of €50m on the actual projects ongoing.

Jayuu · 18-09-2024 11:29PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122621288#Comment_122621288

Who is saying this? How can there be cost overruns on the Adare bypass when it's barely even started?

marno21 · 20-09-2024 11:33AM

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/cork/news/cork-councillor-calls-for-multi-annual-funding-to-ensure-road-projects-progress/a748476449.html

Pale Red · 20-09-2024 04:10PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122636124#Comment_122636124

Forgive my ignorance, if a road such as the M20 is going to take a number of years to build then the funding is there for those years. It's not a case of stopping half way through because the money ran out. Do TII not have an indicative multi-year budget and the Oireachtas give annual budget on a yearly basis. The Oireachtas would not amend the indicative figure unless there were very good reasons. I have mention one project but the principle would hold in the TII overall budget.

Charles Babbage · 20-09-2024 05:36PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122637130#Comment_122637130

The politicians like to announce money every year, even though the work is started and the money is more or less inevitable. Even in 2009 they finished the motorway projects that were underway at that time.

roadmaster · 20-09-2024 07:39PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122631908#Comment_122631908

It was a report in the indo. Id say it was just a journlist getting mixed up between design amd construction terms

Jayuu · 25-09-2024 12:16PM

Personally I think the era of major road building is probably coming to an end. Whether that is good or bad is a whole argument that can be had but it's a reality. There will continue to be construction such as the M20, M21 and M28 and further improvements along a series of route corridors to improve connectivity, take traffic out of towns and villages, and deliver better road safety. However the idea that after the next election suddenly we're going to embark on some major series of new road infrastructure is fantasy.

That may come as a disappointment to those who seem to think that it's just Eamon Ryan or the Greens who are the only source of every blockage when it comes to road building and that once they are gone (if they are gone!) we'll be back to the early 2000s from a project point of view. No doubt Ryan has had an influence over the last few years but the focus will be more on active travel and improved public transport over the next ten to twenty years no matter who is the Minister for Transport.

marno21 · 25-09-2024 01:01PM

https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/arid-41481370.html

Must be nearing election time that he's found his voice on this issue.

(2021: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-40720704.html)

Cookiemunster · 25-09-2024 01:22PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122652493#Comment_122652493

Literally nobody is expecting an era of major road building. That happened in the 00's and now we're in the process of filling the remaining gaps.

However, Eamonn Ryan is personally delaying smaller projects from even moving through the design and planning process by denying TII the funds they need to progress these schemes. And he has interfered in things like the LSMATS to stop the Limerick Northern Distributor Road being included.

All most want is that necessary roads upgrades actually happen, because as important as the PT mega projects are, a very large percentage of the population will have no choice but to continue using the roads.

hans aus dtschl · 25-09-2024 02:12PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122652735#Comment_122652735

While you might be right on every point, what I also believe I see is TII doing a bit of political jostling here. We're in full-on election season, even if the posters aren't up and a date isn't set. I don't believe for a second that all the problems with delivery are down to TII not having funding. I'll agree again that Ryan may be a blocker, delaying some projects (that's what it looks like) but for the most part I believe that the issue is that we had a stop-start of "all projects" then "no projects" for years then "all projects" again all at once. There's a lack of people available for approval, design, construction, and everything else.

Even the approved and fully funded small local schemes near me are waiting 1-2 years now and those are certainly not down to Ryan. We just need for there to be a continuous pipeline of steady projects. I know it's not politically popular but TII probably need to stagger work so that there's continuous spend and delivery for the next 2-3 decades.

I know I want the N28, M20, the N25 upgraded, the N22 "Lissarda gap" closed, the N71 and a whole host of other roads upgraded (and that's just my local area!). However I don't understand why there needs to be something of an "all at once" approach. And it's probably worse than that because there's political jostling between areas, with the North-West feeling "left behind" by a comparable lack of infrastructure etc. I don't think "funding shortages" are insulated from that. If Metro spending ever kicked off for instance, I don't think we'd be talking about TII "funding shortages" at all.

I guess I'm just saying that the TII is a political organisation and that infrastructure delivery is politics at its core, whether we on here like it or not. So what TII says it "needs" and what we "need" as a country are not necessarily the same. They have their priorities, and it's absolutely reasonable for them to try and hoover up as much resources as they can get. It's comparable to the HSE: it's almost irrelevant how much of the budget they get, they'd use it all if they're given it! It's up to the politicians to balance the various needs.

Rather than TII being given a bigger cut of this year's or next year's budget, I'd love for them to get a multi-annual budget and then set out schedules of long-term delivery that are better under their control. You could balance regional needs, roads Vs mass transit, freight Vs people and everything else.

KrisW1001 · 25-09-2024 03:19PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122652942#Comment_122652942

A multi-year budget isn’t a big change from the current situation: every general budget includes a large percentage of committed spending, which is basically the money needed to pay for projects that were voted for in previous budgets. Because most of its operations are multi-year capital projects, quite a lot of the Transport budget comes from that pre-committed money. (75% of the Transport budget is capital expenditure - a bigger share than any other department).

Transport in 2024 was €3.6 billion - about 3% of total government expenditure. It’s been around that level since the current government came into power, and while that figure was a 70% increase over the previous FG-led government, unfortunately the allocation has not tracked inflation: the budget was €3.5 billion back in 2021 - to have kept up with general inflation it would need to be around €4.0 billion today; to have kept up with construction inflation, I’d argue €5 billion would be more like it.

[ Figures are all from Where Your Money Goes ]

Trying to fix a floor below which the Transport budget cannot fall isn’t a good idea, and it would never fly politically: what makes DoT so special that it gets guaranteed income regardless of needs?

We need a bit more ambition and imagination from central government about what Transport can deliver to the economy, but when you look at the figures that are being spent, it’s hard to see what could be cut to provide cash to Transport. I also notice that we pay about twice the Transport budget every year just to service our national debt - this is the big difference between the “glory days” of the 2000s and today.

hans aus dtschl · 25-09-2024 04:08PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122653271#Comment_122653271

Yeah you're right on all points. But I'd also argue that Transport is slightly "special" in that - like education - it's a quantifiable long term investment.

Things like Health, Defence, Finance, Foreign Affairs, Justice, Housing etc can all be quite reactive: these all need steady critical spends just to keep the state functioning, but putting excess money into them won't necessarily yield returned money in future. Whereas some of the departments are more directly "transactional" and if we use some of our current surplus it could actually be a net investment. Education, Transport, Enterprise etc are what I have in mind here. So if we created an infrastructure "fund" to start with, and topped that up by the agreed % of the budget annually it might be better than simply directly allocating. Maybe.

Charles Babbage · 25-09-2024 05:38PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122652942#Comment_122652942

There is a something to be said for keeping a project going in different areas to balance out the work and this could be acceptable politically. So that there is always something on the N2/N3, always something in Sligo/Donegal etc

marno21 · 26-09-2024 02:49AM

I don't think anyone is advocating for a roads bonanza.

But we have:

A National Development Plan agreed across Government in 2018 and reviewed in 2022, which contains a number of important roads schemes
A commitment in the Programme for Government to split investment between public transport and roads by the ratio of 2:1.*

Most people believe the above should be honoured. It's not a lot to ask for.

(* Personally, I believe that the ratio should be closer to 5:2 or even 3:1 to account for the large deficit in public transport capital investment. Most of the interurban network and large roads projects (M50, Waterford bypass, Limerick bypass) got done in the boom years but the major PT capital projects (Metro North, DART Underground etc) got canned due to bad timing and the financial crisis. There is a much bigger financial value of critical PT projects (including Metro North, DART Expansion etc) that need urgent implementation than there are critical roads projects. At the same time, there is no fundamental reason why said critical roads projects are not advanced in a timely manner)

cartoncowboy · 26-09-2024 03:12PM

Interesting Article here saying FF/FG are sidestepping ER on funding for certain road projects. Election is nigh!!

"Transport Minister Eamon Ryan is being sidestepped and around €6million in funding for roads is being found – funds the Green Minister had refused to sanction.

Ten major road projects that had been through the tendering process had been paused as they were not being adequately funded to proceed"

Tensions in Government rise as roads to get built with Greens sidestepped (extra.ie)

neiljung · 27-09-2024 09:00AM

Those are all pavement/resurfacing works. It's a very strange topic to be fighting over given the very small scale of the costs in the overall context of the upcoming budget.

Seth Brundle · 27-09-2024 09:32AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122656757#Comment_122656757

Am I correct in reading that as TII have reallocated existing funding to those projects and the Dept haven't issued any additional budget?
In other words, a clickbait article by the Mail

KrisW1001 · 27-09-2024 10:28AM

The Daily Mail trying to generate outrage from a non-story? Tell me it's not true!

Looks like a reallocation of unspent or recovered money from finished projects. All normal, and not something that needs a Minister to sign off on each one.