Budget (supplementary) 2009

murphaph · 07-04-2009 5:31pm #1

http://www.budget.gov.ie/2009SupApril09/SummaryofSupplementaryBudgetMeasuresPolicyChanges.html

No mention of anything significant for public transport at all. The Interconnector lives another day

Amtmann · 07-04-2009 5:35pm

Some figures here: http://www.budget.gov.ie/2009SupApril09/SummaryofSupplementaryBudgetMeasuresPolicyChanges.html#CapitalExpenditure

Chris_533976 · 07-04-2009 5:59pm

From that site -

Transport

Reduction in national roads maintenance grants to the National Roads Authority; and reduction in Exchequer subvention payments to CIÉ for provision of public transport services. €11m

Transport – €300 million savings, including a reduction of €150 million or 8% in investment in roads. In 2009, this reduction is applied mainly to regional and local roads. Expenditure on national roads is substantially contractually committed to allow for the on-time and on-budget completion of the inter-urban motorway network by end 2010 as promised. There will also be some deferrals and rescheduling of public transport projects.

Again, €150million is a single medium scheme.

What I still think will happen is that no new government funded projects (apart from Castleisland) will start until the Interurbans are finished. The four PPPs are still being pushed, but no infomration on them tho.

Gruffalo · 07-04-2009 6:14pm

He did say that money would be saved by virtue of tenders coming in cheaper now that costs have fallen.

Sponge Bob · 07-04-2009 6:18pm

The Government decided on reductions of €315 million on the earlier Estimate for the Department of Transport in the Supplementary Budget:

€15 million saving on current expenditure
€300 million saving on capital expenditure

The €15 million reduction in current expenditure will be in the following areas:

A reduction of €5 million on national road maintenance, bringing the revised provision to €44 million

A reduction of €10 million in public transport service payments to CIE, the revised provision being €303 million.

The €300 million reduction in capital expenditure will be in the following areas:

There will be a €150 million reduction in the capital provision for regional and local roads so that the overall expenditure allocation for regional and local roads will now be €448m (€332m capital and €126m current).

(25% off maintenance = 33% more potholes -SB)

Revised grant allocations will be issued to local authorities in the coming days.

The capital provision for public transport will be reduced by €150 million to €630 million.

(20% off Rail Spending - SB)

The reduced capital allocation for public transport will result in some delay in the implementation of a number of projects that are still in the planning stages. Planning and design work on these projects will continue but the timing of procurement and implementation will remain dependent on the availability of funding in future years.

The capital allocation for national roads is unaffected. This is because all but €50 million of the €1.44 billion is already contractually committed.

Amtmann · 07-04-2009 6:20pm

Mention was made during the minister's speech of the proposed infrastructure bond. Where, do people think, stands the Interconnector, Metro North and the M20?

Chris_533976 · 07-04-2009 6:23pm

They're different I think as they are PPPs. My understanding (which could well be wrong) is that the infrastructure bond would fund Goverment funded projects, not PPPs. I realise that PPPs do cost the gov a certain amount every year, but not as much as a gov-funded scheme.

What I just said could be bull**** though.

Amtmann · 07-04-2009 6:48pm

DoT Press Release: http://www.transport.ie/pressRelease.aspx?Id=82

graduate · 07-04-2009 7:15pm

(25% off maintenance = 33% more potholes -SB)

Revised grant allocations will be issued to local authorities in the coming days.

Tender prices might be 10% less, so the NRA maintenance cut might not lead to very much less activity and the effects of the local authority cuts may be less.

mysterious · 07-04-2009 8:08pm

To be honest,

I'd rather a small enfield type bypass built for Claregalway for now, and focus on the badly needed Northern M20 Scheme, especially since the Adare bypass is incoporated into it.

I'm putting priority for this, because.
A N20 has got no attention in the last developments plans. Adare has been crying out for a bypass for the last 20years. The amount of deaths on the N20 is a embarrasment. From Croom to Buttevant is at a unacceptable standard. The road is too dangerous, windy and narrow.

There is no major bottleneck on the N17/N18 if they go ahead with a Claregalway bypass (which is needed now regardless if the M17 goes ahead or not) Anyway Gort is now been bypassed.

So with the way everything is been strained, could we not focus on one scheme on the M20. Seriously the M20 has always been pushed over smaller schemes such as the N4, N9, N5 and N17 in the last few years.

What do you all reckon?

Sponge Bob · 07-04-2009 10:02pm

In the next round of cutbacks that would be equitable , yes . Very little needs doing to Claregalway to relieve it just as Enfield and Kinnegad were relieved pending their motorway bypasses.

murphaph · 08-04-2009 3:12am

We're in a national emergency to all intents and purposes. **** Claregalway and divert every penny to Dublin NOW! Dublin has and will continue to be the beating heart of our economy for ever. It is what has made all these rural schemes possible-don't strangle it when it most needs our national collective help!

BluntGuy · 08-04-2009 3:34am

I'm seriously questioning our ability to pay for projects like Interconnector and Metro North.

But they are both (in particular Interconnector) needed urgently, and if possible without seriously damaging the economy, money must be found for them.

I am not sure where that money is going to come from. The NRA won't be enjoying its current generous budgetry allowances come 2011 - that's for sure. Maybe that's a start...

But I honestly can't see work on both MN and Interconnector starting next year.

IIMII · 08-04-2009 9:07am

BluntGuy wrote: »

I honestly can't see work on both MN and Interconnector starting next year.

I can't see work on anything really starting next year, at least not until the cycle of cut backs is completed. I think the governement may well be in a situation where it is not politically acceptable to ditch projects, but it may not be politically acceptable to start them either whilst in the middle of cutting expenditure elsewhere. I bet they'll find a comfortable fence, and avoid starting one without the other

Zoney · 08-04-2009 10:28am

murphaph wrote: »

We're in a national emergency to all intents and purposes. **** Claregalway and divert every penny to Dublin NOW! Dublin has and will continue to be the beating heart of our economy for ever. It is what has made all these rural schemes possible-don't strangle it when it most needs our national collective help!

Yes, because that will help the regions keep jobs and not just be a complete burden on Dublin taxpayers. Plus all the mess of even *more* economic migration to Dublin, a city which already cannot be financed enough for the percentage of the population there, because we have to keep an entire country running, not just Dublin city.

A bypass of Claregalway indirectly benefits Dubliners due to the huge effect it will have in saving time and money in Galway and its hinterlands - thus helping that region to be more self-sufficient rather than being even more of a net tax burden.

All that focussing on Dublin in the current dire circumstances will acheive, is the loss of *even more* jobs in the regions, and an even greater chance of bankrupting the country. It's not like Dublin can cope with an influx of economic migrants from the regions in the current circumstances! Nor is much reduction in the costs of administering the regions achieved - quite the reverse with the loss of local income.

Murphaph - I do not think you are realising the precipitous circumstances of cities like Limerick, and how infeasible it is to allow complete economic collapse in such places so as they become a huge drain on the national coffers without hardly any contribution. At the moment, we are facing the prospect of decades of economic doldrums in the entire Midwest area unless a strategy is found to deal with thousands and thousands of jobs being lost due to Dell, suppliers and local services/retail and the €100 million plus taken out of the local economy. In case you aren't aware - even with Dell, the city (mainly due to the division between three local authorities) was barely providing enough economic focus for West Limerick, North Cork, West Clare, North Tipp/South Offaly. The new roads in the pipeline would have improved things a lot - unfortunately they are decades late!

How in these circumstances is it remotely feasible for the State to focus just on one area, however important it is?

murphaph · 08-04-2009 10:47am

oney, if Dublin is left floundering (again) and denied the infrastructure a capital city needs, Ireland will sink completely.

London had an underground before any rural bypasses or motorway were built. Berlin had an underground before 1km of Autobahn was built. Dublin has been left behind by other european capitals for far too long. Budapest is CURRENTLY build metro line 4 and 5 is set to go next year. In Hungary they accept that their capital needs sorting first. We are competing with the hungarians etc.

Ireland is TOO SMALL to be diluting jobs all over the place. That's one of our main problems. In (for example) Bavaria (roughly the size of ireland), people expect that if they grow up in a regional or rural area that they will have to head off to Munich or Nurnberg to study and work and visit home at the weekends/holidays. They don't expect jobs to be brought to their rural area or small town.

Ireland needs to accept that there is an economy of scale issue here and it's high time we did focus on Dublin. If people have to move, they have to move. I know lots of guys in the states who lost jobs on the east coast in the 80's and had to pack their familes up and head 2000miles west.

paulm17781 · 08-04-2009 11:18am

Well put Murhaph. I am beginning to accept that I may have to move from Dublin to London / US / Australia for work. I have never understood why people expect jobs on their door. That's what cities are for. If Dublin can't sustain jobs, I don't see anywhere else being able to.

Zoney · 08-04-2009 11:33am

murphaph wrote: »

Ireland is TOO SMALL to be diluting jobs all over the place. That's one of our main problems. In (for example) Bavaria (roughly the size of ireland), people expect that if they grow up in a regional or rural area that they will have to head off to Munich or Nurnberg to study and work and visit home at the weekends/holidays. They don't expect jobs to be brought to their rural area or small town.

Ireland needs to accept that there is an economy of scale issue here and it's high time we did focus on Dublin. If people have to move, they have to move. I know lots of guys in the states who lost jobs on the east coast in the 80's and had to pack their familes up and head 2000miles west.

Bavaria is the same area with *three times* the population! As such even with so much of the population concentrated on Munich and environs, the regions are still quite populated! We have not such luxury here.

Your comments about rural areas and small towns are disingenious - I am in favour of a proper spatial strategy - but that involves *developing* places like Galway and Limerick!

The reason Dublin is floundering is that already the jobs and population are too skewed, and we have a completely dysfunctional capital as well as impoverished regions. The two go hand in hand.

Your preferred strategy is *not* beneficial to Dublin - unless the Republic suddenly just included greater Dublin and ditched the rest. Even then such a country would suffer for having impoverished neighbours. Why do you think there was any interest in other European countries to have Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece etc. improve?

As for the States? It's no model of the way things should be done - do you really think it is sane to let situations like Detroit and the rust belt develop? For a "united" states they sure aren't very cohesive!

bg07 · 08-04-2009 11:38am

One thing that can be taken from the DoT press release is that the following projects are not even being paid lip service any more:-

Metro West
Navan to Dunboyne Railway
WRC Phase 2 and 3
Lucan Luas Line
Rathfarnham luas line
Luas extension to Bray
Luas city centre link

These projects seem destined to be on ice for at least 5 years before the diggers move in.

Personally I'd willingly sacrifice the above projects and maybe even metro north for a few more years if they started construction of the interconnector as soon as possible.

paulm17781 · 08-04-2009 11:50am

bg07 wrote: »

One thing that can be taken from the DoT press release is that the following projects are not even being paid lip service any more:-
Metro West

Navan to Dunboyne Railway

WRC Phase 2 and 3

Lucan Luas Line

Rathfarnham luas line

Luas extension to Bray

Luas city centre link

These projects seem destined to be on ice for at least 5 years before the diggers move in.

Personally I'd willingly sacrifice the above projects and maybe even metro north for a few more years if they started construction of the interconnector as soon as possible.

Couldn't agree more. IMO, these were superficial anyway.

murphaph · 08-04-2009 11:59am

It's incredible that with effect from March this year anyone developing (that includes building a private dwelling on your own land) within 1km either side of the metro west corridor is paying significant development levies towards metro west, yet they may never see it built. It's grossly unfair and there should be a mechanism whereby if no construction starts within a set number of years of you having paid your levy that you get it returned to you.

KC61 · 08-04-2009 1:07pm

bg07 wrote: »

One thing that can be taken from the DoT press release is that the following projects are not even being paid lip service any more:-
Metro West

Navan to Dunboyne Railway

WRC Phase 2 and 3

Lucan Luas Line

Rathfarnham luas line

Luas extension to Bray

Luas city centre link

These projects seem destined to be on ice for at least 5 years before the diggers move in.

Personally I'd willingly sacrifice the above projects and maybe even metro north for a few more years if they started construction of the interconnector as soon as possible.

I would suggest that the Rathfarnham LUAS has been consigned to the dustbin of history for good, as the costs and benefits were both negative. It was a crazy idea from the start as the entire route was on street.

paulm17781 · 08-04-2009 1:37pm

KC61 wrote: »

I would suggest that the Rathfarnham LUAS has been consigned to the dustbin of history for good, as the costs and benefits were both negative. It was a crazy idea from the start as the entire route was on street.

That was just a thought anyway wasn't it? IIRC, it was never in T21.

spacetweek · 08-04-2009 2:08pm

paulm17781 wrote: »

That was just a thought anyway wasn't it? IIRC, it was never in T21.

Yes, Line E was only mentioned in T21 as one that they would study. It failed to pass this test last year and won't be built now. Metro South will cover much of the territory it would serve anyway.

Murphaph, good point about the Metro West levies. There's no way we'll see MW until at least 2015 or maybe later now.

Mysterious, I actually agree with you (stop the lights!) about Claregalway. A bypass of it is more immediately needed than the M17. Though, with the M18 and M17 being one combined project, the motorway will probably go ahead now.

Not generally too impressed with the DoT's statement. Basically it says that the budget will allow them to continue building things that are under construction already and that they are contractually obliged to finish now. That went without saying. No real statement made on MN or IC, which are still described as the dreaded "In planning". Based on this article, IC sounds like starting in Q4 2010. With a decision on MN not due until Sep and its tenders not ready until Q1 2010, I predict Q2 2010 for MN to start, if at all, depending on how the tendering goes.

The only significant thing I noticed in there was the commitment to begin work this year on the DART resignalling, which is a very important behind-the-scenes project. This is good at least.

invincibleirish · 08-04-2009 2:29pm

Zoney wrote: »

Your comments about rural areas and small towns are disingenious - I am in favour of a proper spatial strategy - but that involves *developing* places like Galway and Limerick!

The reason Dublin is floundering is that already the jobs and population are too skewed, and we have a completely dysfunctional capital as well as impoverished regions. The two go hand in hand.

Your comments about a 'proper' spatial strategy are interesting, as we have seen with projects like the WRC & the M9, which have spurious benefits, but were justified on the grounds of promoting balanced spatial strategy. If we are serious about developing a spatial strategy that works, it would have to focus on only one or two key areas, and that includes Dublin, would you accept this if Limerick or Galway were not included? the NSS as is a failure but it kept everyone in th regions happy.

Zoney · 08-04-2009 3:32pm

invincibleirish wrote: »

Your comments about a 'proper' spatial strategy are interesting, as we have seen with projects like the WRC & the M9, which have spurious benefits, but were justified on the grounds of promoting balanced spatial strategy. If we are serious about developing a spatial strategy that works, it would have to focus on only one or two key areas, and that includes Dublin, would you accept this if Limerick or Galway were not included? the NSS as is a failure but it kept everyone in th regions happy.

The NSS as is wasn't attempted! There are valid arguments that it wasn't conservative enough in the no. of hubs, but we didn't even stick to that - the nonsensical decentralisation programme involved other disparate locations rather than focussing on the hubs/gateways. And yes, I would say the NSS had too many locations, but to suggest it shouldn't involve Limerick *and* Galway, the third and fourth cities in the Republic, is fanciful!

BluntGuy · 08-04-2009 4:15pm

bg07 wrote: »

One thing that can be taken from the DoT press release is that the following projects are not even being paid lip service any more:-
Metro West

Navan to Dunboyne Railway

WRC Phase 2 and 3

Lucan Luas Line

Rathfarnham luas line

Luas extension to Bray

Luas city centre link

These projects seem destined to be on ice for at least 5 years before the diggers move in.

Personally I'd willingly sacrifice the above projects and maybe even metro north for a few more years if they started construction of the interconnector as soon as possible.

Those weren't going ahead anyway... so it comes as no surprise.

And yes, Interconnector must take priority over Metro North and indeed all other transport infrastructure projects in the country, but I fear that will not happen. The DoT and our media have been giving undue precedence to Metro North and as such I fear if it comes down to choosing between IC and MN, MN will go ahead because it's the more politically beneficial project to proceed with.

And even if no payments are due until 2015 - that's great. But we shouldn't assume (as I feel many people do) that we're going to magically come out of recession and back into prosperity come 2012. People don't realise the extent of the damage our property bubble has done. It will take us years, perhaps a decade or two to return to what we had going before this FF government recked it all.

BluntGuy · 08-04-2009 6:53pm

Here is the examiner report:

http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/ididqlsncw/

Gruffalo · 08-04-2009 7:20pm

murphaph wrote: »

oney, if Dublin is left floundering (again) and denied the infrastructure a capital city needs, Ireland will sink completely.

London had an underground before any rural bypasses or motorway were built. Berlin had an underground before 1km of Autobahn was built. Dublin has been left behind by other european capitals for far too long. Budapest is CURRENTLY build metro line 4 and 5 is set to go next year. In Hungary they accept that their capital needs sorting first. We are competing with the hungarians etc.

Ireland is TOO SMALL to be diluting jobs all over the place. That's one of our main problems. In (for example) Bavaria (roughly the size of ireland), people expect that if they grow up in a regional or rural area that they will have to head off to Munich or Nurnberg to study and work and visit home at the weekends/holidays. They don't expect jobs to be brought to their rural area or small town.

Ireland needs to accept that there is an economy of scale issue here and it's high time we did focus on Dublin. If people have to move, they have to move. I know lots of guys in the states who lost jobs on the east coast in the 80's and had to pack their familes up and head 2000miles west.

The usual Dublin sh1te. How do you plan to get 4.25 million people living in Dublin, educate them, provide facilities for them, Hospitals for them etc. etc. Where are you going to put all this stuff if everything is put in the 3rd smallest county in the country. The country would fall apart, it would be unworkable. Your post is just BS of the highest order.

invincibleirish · 08-04-2009 7:52pm

Zoney wrote: »

The NSS as is wasn't attempted! There are valid arguments that it wasn't conservative enough in the no. of hubs, but we didn't even stick to that - the nonsensical decentralisation programme involved other disparate locations rather than focussing on the hubs/gateways. And yes, I would say the NSS had too many locations, but to suggest it shouldn't involve Limerick *and* Galway, the third and fourth cities in the Republic, is fanciful!

But this kind of argument underlined is the same kind of indignation thats evident when it comes to any kind of rationalisation in national plans with a view to concentrating resources in fewer areas. The NSS with its 17 Hubs/Gateways compromising 20+ towns was always doomed to failure. Who misses out?

murphaph · 08-04-2009 7:56pm

Gruffalo wrote: »

The usual Dublin sh1te. How do you plan to get 4.25 million people living in Dublin, educate them, provide facilities for them, Hospitals for them etc. etc. Where are you going to put all this stuff if everything is put in the 3rd smallest county in the country. The country would fall apart, it would be unworkable. Your post is just BS of the highest order.

As Zoney himself admitted, the NSS failed becuse many of you guys in the regions and yur politicians couldn't agree amongst yourselves that certain towns had to lose out under the NSS and so it was watered down and watered down so as to appear that no parish pump would lose it's infrastructure!

That's the problem-you all want your parish/village/town/county to have a hospital/university/industrial estate/etc. It's the GAA County Jersey mentality that has is fcuked as much as anything else.

You want one off houses all over the fcuking place and then expect jobs and services to be brought to you. Ridiculous.

Budget (supplementary) 2009

Comments