Three major road and motorway schemes in the National Roads Programme are to open before the end of the year, up to 12 months ahead of schedule, The Irish Times has learned.
The schemes are the Dundalk Western Bypass, which is six months ahead of schedule; the Kilcock-Kinnegad M4 motorway, which is set to open one year in advance; and the Sligo Inner Relief Road, which has been completed about three months in advance of deadline.
The projects have a combined value of almost €700 million.
The first to open is to be the Sligo Inner Relief Road which will open next Friday. The route involved the construction of 4.6km (2.9 miles) of standard dual carriageway and 1km (0.62 miles) of single carriageway, from the Carrowroe roundabout to Hughes Bridge in the town.
The contract, worth some €75 million, was awarded to Ascon Ltd in March 2004 and the deadline for the scheme was the last quarter of 2005.
The second scheme to open will be the Dundalk Western Bypass, initially scheduled to open next March, but now due to open in September, some six months ahead of time.
The public-private partnership (PPP) motorway involves the construction of an 11km (6.8 mile) stretch of road from the M1 motorway south of Dundalk around the western side of the town. It includes about 8km (5 miles) of side roads and tie-ins.
The National Roads Authority (NRA) is not contributing to the construction cost of the Dundalk Western Bypass, which is to be financed by tolls collected on the M1 motorway. The cost is estimated at €200 million and the construction consortium is Celtic Roads Group (Dundalk) Ltd. As part of the deal, the group will maintain a long section of the M1 almost to Gormonston, as well as the western bypass.
The largest and most expensive of the three roads, the 39km (24.2 mile) Kilcock to Kinnegad M4 motorway, is now scheduled to open by the end of this year - a full year ahead of the projected completion date.
The new road will be a continuation of the Dublin to Kilcock motorway culminating west of Kinnegad on both the Sligo and Galway roads.
This is a major PPP scheme awarded in March 2003 and the total cost was estimated at €420 million at 2003 prices. The State will pay €100 million for land and a further €170 million towards construction costs. The contractor is Eurolink, a consortium made up of the Irish company Siac and Cintra Concesiones of Spain. Eurolink will provide the rest of the finance, about €150 million, which is being financed by the European Investment Bank and recouped through a 30-year toll concession.
The motorway will have a dramatic effect on journey times between Dublin and the midlands, enabling an uninterrupted dual carriageway or motorway network between Dundalk, Dublin, Wicklow, south of Portlaoise and north of Mullingar.
The Dublin to Sligo and Dublin to Galway routes are set to be further enhanced later this year with the opening of bypasses of Loughrea in Co Galway and Edgeworthstown in Co Longford.
Work on the Kinnegad to Athlone section of the Dublin to Galway route began last April, with a completion date of the fourth quarter of 2007.
According to Michael Egan of the NRA, the advance opening of the three schemes is evidence that the National Roads Programme is picking up speed.
Mr Egan said some schemes had been particularly difficult. For example, traffic monitoring had suggested most of the traffic heading into Sligo did not go beyond the town, making the option of a simple bypass inappropriate.
The inner relief road had first been put forward in 1994 but was subject to objections at the design stage, he said.
