Blessington Municipal District have expressed its anger towards the decision of Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) to suspend road works on the N81 Tallaght to Hollywood Cross route.
WicklowNews reported on Friday that the TII had suspended the planned upgrades on the route indefinitely, citing a ‘lack of funding’.
“The funding available to TII for investment in the network of national road during the period of the plan is limited […] the proposed N81 Tallaght to Hollywood Cross road improvement scheme is currently suspended and is not included amongst those projects which have been identified for development,” TII Director of Communications Sean O’Neill said.
Back in November, the TII wrote to the chief executives of local authorities to inform them that the road maintenance budget would be cut by 15% nationwide and by up to 30% for the local authorities.
However, Councillor Gerry O’Neill rebuked this reasoning, calling it “hard to accept” and mentioning the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport budget of €2.03 billion for 2018, up 12% on 2017.
He called the N81 a “very bad road” and accused the TII and Department of Transport of being “in their own world”.
O’Neill also voiced his confusion at how the process had gone about, saying “the agreed route was in place and had been in place for two years.”
He said that he would be urging the TII to reconsider their decision before saying that he would be communicating his disappointment to the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Shane Ross.
