Ireland's motorway network is unbalanced and unfinished

Ireland’s motorway map looks unbalanced - hardly any of the main roads in the west and northwest of the country have been upgraded to motorway standard.

Some of them may not need full motorway capacity, but there are dual carriageway designs which would cater well for likely volumes.

Only a few sections have been dualled and connectivity to Belfast and Dublin is poor north of the Dublin-Galway motorway.

Perception

There is a perception (especially in Dublin and Belfast!) that the motorway plans have been completed, but that is not the case - the financial crash of 2008 resulted in the deferral of many important schemes.

The position is a little better than the map would suggest - dual carriageways are not shown and there are some important four- and six-lane ones in operation, especially around the cities and some road investment is under way.

For example, the Northern Ireland authorities are upgrading the A6 route connecting Belfast to Derry and the Dublin government has indicated, in the National Development Plan, that several of the holes in the network are on the to-do list.

Prominent casualty

The most prominent casualty of the post-crash cutbacks to the capital programme was the M20, the planned route connecting Limerick to Cork.

But there are others deserving of an early second chance. Completion of the M4 section from Mullingar to Longford would serve both west and northwest - the road forks at Longford for Castlebar and Sligo.

The route north of Tuam towards Sligo, the N17, was celebrated precisely 30 years ago in a hit song by the Saw Doctors which is enjoying a revival, but the road plans are unloved.

Instead, a campaign has been mounted to urge a single-track railway line north from Athenry to serve Tuam and Claremorris, along the N17 alignment.

Rail option

There is a disused railway line on this route, abandoned 45 years ago due to a lack of adequate passenger or goods traffic.

It would make a fine setting for a greenway, catering for cyclists and walkers and that option has many supporters too, but Mayo politicians seem to favour the more expensive railway option.

The railway campaigners succeeded in persuading Shane Ross, when he was Minister for Transport, to commission a report on the issue from consultants Ernst and Young, which was finally released a couple of weeks ago.

The report, which cost €500,000, concluded that traffic prospects are poor (there are decent bus services from towns such as Tuam and Claremorris into Galway) and that the benefits from the scheme were not even close to the costs.

The Department of Transport then sought a second opinion from a unit of the European Investment Bank called Jaspers and they delivered an even more emphatic thumbs-down.

Demonstrations

In 2019, there were demonstrations in Connemara about the poor condition of the roads - in addition to the absence of investment in new road capacity, there have been inadequate budgets provided to local authorities for maintenance of the existing network.

Given the reliance on the roads for both passenger and goods traffic, including public transport in buses, the attachment of local politicians to expensive railway schemes is a bit of a puzzle.

Even Irish Rail was reportedly lukewarm about the investment of over €100m in the single-track Ennis to Athenry line which loses another few million a year, carries few passengers and no freight, and offers a journey time from Limerick or Ennis to Galway slower than the far more frequent bus services.

If each county or region were instead given an overall budget for capital works there would be a clear incentive to avoid wasting money

The system of local government finance in Ireland is not connected to the capital programme – any money spent on roads, rail, water, or anything else is a political allocation from central government, and so appears to be ‘free’ to local TDs or campaigners.

If each county or region were instead given an overall budget for capital works there would be a clear incentive to avoid wasting money on poor projects, since superior local alternatives would have to be sacrificed.

It makes perfect sense for voters in Galway and Mayo to demand better road provision, but the current system facilitates those who pretend that less important schemes can also be provided from the bountiful resources of the national Exchequer.