Roads budget with the new gov

Someone did, as we now have a new planning process for large projects: I can't imagine Transport didn't have a say in that. We'll see how it goes, but unfortunately, anything that entered the old process had to stay in it.

On Roads particularly, remember that Road Transport was partially carved out of DoT and given to a junior minister. I know this was done to "Green-proof" roads, but I suspect it had the opposite effect, and introduced confusion and delay as some authority over road projects was delegated, and some retained by the Minister.

Discussion of coalition formation is off-topic, so I won’t challenge your prediction, but what effect do you think such an outcome would have on the roads policies of the new government?

I believe that more public transport options are needed in the major urban hubs with the inclusion of park and ride facilities at the main entry points to cities to allow for those living in rural areas to have the option to take public transport.

My issue about the 2:1 ratio was that the Minister appeared to use it as a weapon to slow down or actively downgrade projects which would end up costing a lot more in the future to rectify e.g. actively trying to downgrade the N24 project from dual carriageway to s2 bypasses.

I also believe that the motorway network is not complete. Sure Dublin, Limerick and Galway are interconnected; but Cork and Waterford are completely out of the picture as regards connectivity until the N20, N24 and N25 are also upgraded.

Throw in the whole debacle of Waterford Airport and the paltry sum ER refused to give and you can see why many voters had little time for the Minister, and as such, his party.

I know it's old news but imagine how much money would have been saved had Transport21 actually been implemented vs the cost of doing anything like it now.

N25 does not have anything like the traffic needed to justify a motorway. Type 2 DC is the upper limit of upgrade you could expect on all sections that aren't already Type 1 DC (i.e., the Waterford bypass and the Cork approach), and for various reasons those Type 1 sections won't ever be designated as motorway.

N24 is planned as a Type 2 DC upgrade, and that will sort it for the foreseeable future.

There is only one motorway that's needed on the basis of current and future demand, and that's M20. N28 could have been a 2+2, but Cork County Council wanted another commuter motorway, so it'll be M28.

Realistically given where we were at the time borrowing €1billion was simply not possible and even if we had been able to borrow that much the idea that we would spend it on a road when taxes were being increased significantly would have been political dynamite. I wish it had managed to get done at that time but this wasn't an option.

To be honest if we take out the M20, M21 and M28 which are all going through anyway, if I were the Minister of Transport then from a major road building perspective I'd be pushing to construct the M17 projects through with the aim of completing as much as possible of the Cork-Limerick-Galway-Sligo axis , building the N24 to a 2+2 standard to give a southern cross-country route and potentially getting the N40 route completed for Cork and the N6 Galway bypass in some form or other.

Thereafter the priority from a national perspective should be to eliminate blockages in the network with properly constructed town bypasses that could be linked in at a later point (places like Carrick-on-Shannon, Slane, Virginia, etc.;) and the removal of known dangerous stretches of road.

This wouldn't rule out local improvements which could still carry on as necessary.

The N80 between Tullamore and Carlow onwards definitely needs fixing and upgrading. Bypass the villages en-route, widen the lanes etc. Some of it is shockingly bad.

I think we all know that the Mail's "FF Source" is probably the dude in the office who voted for them, so forgive me if I'm sceptical.

Tipp Town on N24 is already in motion, M11 an N22 are stuck in route selection. Actually, I can't really see many existing projects where a government push is even possible. Maybe some new, small schemes might get kicked off, but anything that's far enough along the pipeline for a local TD to usefully claim credit for is already out of the hands of a Minister.

Adare is exactly the kind of dicking around we can do without. I am actually concerned that the Adare project will end up delayed overall because of the golf shenanigans. Once “have a nice road for the yanks going to the golf” becomes the objective, then there’s a temptation to think the project isn’t important anymore once that event is over.

It was always possible to award the whole contract with a stipulation that the Adare section had to be installed before the event, and no other work was permitted on N22 until the event ended. But no, we got a “just do this bit” contract, and that comes with a chance of the rest of it being permanently long-fingered.

tbh I’ll take anything we can get-this period has been a real low point in roads building with some absolutely essential projects just left to wither in the drawing boards. The alternative to wait even longer is worse because god only knows what the excuse could be then

The Transport ministry was only Transport in the last Government.

Ryan also held a brief for Climate Change or some such, but he had nothing to do with Tourism (which was Catherine Martin) or Sport (Thomas Byrne).

Shane Ross was Sport and Transport, although he only ever put effort into the former. DART+ and Metrolink were forced across his desk by FG.

As for "defunded", the DoT budget had to shrink in line with other departments. We need the major PT projects that were kept far more urgently than the smaller road projects that were delayed.

Spending in general boomed, but only in certain departments. People really don't get how expensive the Covid pandemic was, but you can have a look at a graph of our debt since 2019 and you'll see it. It suited the government not to commit to large capital projects at a time when they were neck deep in paying first for Covid reliefs and then for energy supports. During 2022-23 you could barely get a tender in for a construction project, as the companies didn't know how much higher their costs were going to go.

If Eamon Ryan didn't want roads projects to proceed, then it was great for him, because he didn't have to try: only the most reckless minister would have gone on a building binge in that environment.

Ryan's pet projects didn't get bumped to the head of the queue either, all that happened was that everything was held back. FF are very good at deflecting blame, so of course they presented the financial problems with progressing projects as "the Greens holding things up". If that actually happened, it was a tiny contribution against the worst conditions for large projects since the crash.

The changes requested to M11 are basically the same measures that were added to M20.. better facilities at junctions and, yes, a cycleway, but if you think that a cycleway through one of the most touristed counties in the country will be a waste of money, I really don't know what to say.

But costs are stabilising now, and projects are finally emerging from design and planning. Let's see who gets blamed for this government's tardiness in building roads