Campaign for Sensible Transport

Politicians scrap National Road Needs Study

New road-design supremos

In the Chairman's Foreword in the NRA 1998 Review and Programme for 1999, Mr. Liam Connellan confirmed that the Authority, in July 1998, presented the National Road Needs Study to the Minister for the Environment and Local Government Mr. Noel Dempsey.

The Chairman stated that this study is 'the most comprehensive assessment ever undertaken to identify where and in what manner national roads should be improved over a 20 year horizon to 2019'

The National Development Plan on page 61 confirms however that the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructural Development and Public Private Partnership, effectively scrapped this National Road Needs Study - a study prepared at a reputed cost of Ł2million - and instead decided to build a network of motorways - 500 miles long through 25,000 acres of greenfield countryside. No traffic projections based on verifiable traffic engineering principles have been made available to justify this decision nor has Campaign for Sensible Transport (CaST) been able to locate any such data.

These are the politicians who made this decision:

An Taoiseach The Tanaiste Minister for Finance
Mr. McCreevy

Minister for the Environment and Local Government
Mr. Dempsey
Minister for Justice and Law Reform
Mr. O'Donoghue
Mrs. O'Rourke
Minister for Public Enterprise

The Attorney General
Mr. McDowell