“A complete waste of public money” is how Independent Cllr Thomas Welby has described a €300,000 allocation from the National Roads Authority to review the Moycullen bypass.
The review could include proposals for a completely new route for the bypass which has already gone through a rigorous and costly design process, with a figure in excess of €2 million quoted for the initial works.
Connemara based Cllr Welby said he was surprised to hear of the review as councillors were recently informed that this allocation was part of the 2009 Roads Budget. He further pointed out that the route has been incorporated and reserved in the Moycullen Local Area Plan which was adopted by councillors in September 2005.
“This review is totally uncalled for and is a complete waste of public money,” he said. “In the present climate it would be a lot more desirable to spend any available monies on actual road works rather than reviewing an already designed project.”
According to Cllr Welby, the reasons given for the review are that the Galway City Outer Bypass will stop at the N59, and the fact that the staff in the NRA Regional Office in Roscommon have no available work. Staff from the regional office will now travel to Moycullen on a daily basis to review the existing design.
Cllr Welby has written to the CEO of the NRA to ask him to review this allocation. In his letter he said it would make “more sense” if the NRA concentrated on extending the works currently taking place at Roscahill with the available money.
“This would help to improve a dangerous stretch of road and provide badly need employment,” he said. “I thought we had moved away from this waste of public money but unfortunately it still appears some agencies still want to reinvent the wheel.”
