The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, turned the first sod on the construction of a new €31 million outer ring road in Waterford yesterday.
One of the biggest "non-national" road projects in the State, the dual carriageway is being developed by Waterford City Council and will link the city's regional hospital with the Waterford Industrial Estate, the Waterford Institute of Technology, and the approach to Waterford Regional Airport to the south of the city.
In another development yesterday the National Roads Authority (NRA) said it was confident that a potential €20 million High Court challenge to the Waterford City bypass could now be avoided. A private sector partner who will build the road is now expected to be selected later this year. Two preferred bidders have emerged: Irish-international consortium Heggarty Vinci and the Celtic Roads group.
The proposed bypass, which includes a second crossing of the Suir, is now expected to begin construction this year.
When built the bypass will link up with the outer ring road. Between them they will improve access the the west and the south of the city, traffic on the N25 Cork to Waterford route with the proposed M9 Waterford to Dublin route, as well as assisting traffic for Tramore and the regional airport.
Some €20 million of the €31 million cost of the ring road was provided by the Department of Environment under its "Strategic Non-National Roads Programme". The remaining funding is to come from Waterford City Council.
Speaking yesterday the Minister, Mr Cullen, said the road would be "a vital piece of infrastructure for Waterford City".
He added the road will "facilitate the construction of 5,820 houses and open up land for major commercial development".
The contract for the 6.6 km scheme has been awarded to Coffey Construction Ltd.
Expressing his enthusiasm for the road-building programme in the region, the Minister said the projects had the ability to " transform Waterford".
As capital of the south east, Waterford is playing catch-up with Ireland's other regional cities. The infrastructure which the Government is providing for Waterford will reverse this trend.
"It will make the south east region enormously attractive for inward investment and will help us reach the true potential of the people in this city, county and the whole of the south east," Mr Cullen concluded.
Referring to the prospects of a settlement of an action threatened by Kilkenny-based Morris Oil against the proposed Waterford bypass, Mr Michael Egan of the NRA said he hoped the case could be settled soon.
The oil company, which is located upriver of both the existing and proposed Suir bridges, expressed concern about river-borne deliveries of oil to its premises.
The cost to the company of not being able to carry out its business was put at close to €20 million.
According to Mr Egan, however, negotiations have led to a possible solution which sees the NRA pay for modifications to vessels to allow them to pass under the bridge. The cost of this would be a maximum of about €400,000, he said, a figure he described as "light years from €20 million".
However Mr Noel Murphy of Morris Oil told The Irish Times yesterday the company had not seen the settlement terms proposed by the NRA. Mr Murphy said his advisors had been speaking to the NRA's agents but as yet no proposals to settle the dispute had been seen, much less agreed.
"If it is about to be settled I wish they would tell me about it," he commented.
