Roads go 6.62 BILLION over budget

national | miscellaneous | news report

Thursday February 20, 2003 16:53

by Graham Caswell - Green Party

caswell at indigo dot ie

Green Party Press Release

In a world of climate change, of oil wars, of gridlock and of miserable under-investment in public transportation the government has OVERSPENT its budget for roads by a massive 6.62 BILLION. Imagine if that kind of money went into sustainable transportation.

The National Roads Authority faced some tough questions from Green Party Finance spokesperson, Dan Boyle TD, today at the Public Accounts Committee which was investigating why the NRA has overspent by a massive E6.5 billion.

Mr. Boyle, who insisted that the NRA appear before the PAC following reports of the serious overspend, said today, "All estimates can be expected to be a little under or a little over but when it comes to taxpayers money there can be no excuse for an underestimate of nearly 75%. The original estimated 1999 National Roads Programme was E9.18 billion but this has shot up to E15.8 billion in less than four years. This could never be described as incompetence, this is gross negligence of the highest order."

Mr. Boyle questioned the NRA officials on the reasons why they had chosen to ignore their 1998 National Roads Needs Survey; why cost and time overruns on projects were continuingly been revised upwards; why there was a glaring lack of cost control structures in the Authority; and why there was now a new emphasis on public private partnerships with further additional costs to act as some type of white knight.

Deputy Boyle accused the NRA of failing in the role they were set up to do, that is, to deliver roads infrastructure on time and within budget. "This scale of misusing public money is the worst example currently to be found in public life. Continuing to lose money at this rate and in this way means that the Green Party question the very existence of the NRA."