Government unsure of M18 start date

THE Government cannot give a date for commencement of work on the Gort to Tuam motorway, the Minister for Transport, Leo Varadkar said last week, while a spokesperson for the National Roads Authority (NRA) told The Clare Champion it is in a “holding pattern” ahead of any announcement by the Government on the future of the project.
Minister Varadkar made comments on the infrastructure project while in Bunratty last Friday, where he announced grant aid for tourism projects in the Shannon Region.
“The Gort to Tuam bypass will start when we have finance for it. It is a Public Private Partnership project so it was never intended and would never be possible for us to fund it directly from taxpayers’ money. The intention, and it remains the intention, is to fund it and build it as a Public Private Partnership and that requires private finance from international banks, who at the moment are not interested in investing in Ireland. I hope that will change and when it does change we will proceed with the project but I can’t give a date on it,” Minister Varadkar stated.
Asked if he is ruling out the project being financed by the Government’s own resources, Minister Varadkar replied, “If we couldn’t fund it from our own resources when we were awash with cash, we certainly couldn’t afford to fund it from our own resources when we have none. It can only proceed as a PPP and that will require us getting back to the markets and that’s really what everything is about for the next few years.”
The M17/M18 Gort to Tuam road would consist of 53km of motorway or dual carriageway and would bypass Claregalway, Clarinbridge and Tuam, removing them from the direct North-South route between Limerick and Sligo. The new road was meant to be part of a new Atlantic Corridor, a motorway link between Letterkenny and Waterford and was one of the objectives of the National Development Plan (NDP) 2007–2013.
The National Roads Authority confirmed in September 2010 that BAM Balfour Beatty Consortium had been chosen as the preferred bidder to build the M17/M18 Gort to Tuam motorway. Construction was to begin in early 2011 and was to be completed by late 2014. However, it now looks likely that if the project goes ahead, it will be built by a second bidder, the DirectRoute consortium.
“There is a delay due to the sovereign debt difficulties that Ireland is experiencing at this time. Hopefully in the first quarter of the new year these issues will be resolved but currently we are in a holding pattern. It is obviously a vital project for the West but the only project that brings it forward is the PPP model, which involves private funding,” explained Sean O’Neill of the NRA.