In a major setback for the critical M7-Sallins bypass road projects, it was announced last week that KCC is now being asked to fund a major part of these road projects from its ‘own resources’. The Minister for Transport says two out of the three M7 road up-grade projects should be funded from Kildare County Council’s “own resources”. The total cost of these linked schemes is €110 million.

These three related projects are:

• the M7 3 lane widening between Naas and the M7 merge
• the Sallins by-pass
• the Osberstown Interchange

Minister Pascal Donohoe has already stated that funding is not available in the short term. In response to a parliamentary question, he now says “with regard to the Osberstown interchange and the Sallins bypass the improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads is the statutory responsibility of each local authority”. Consequently, KCC may now be obliged to find the money for these schemes itself, supplemented by State grants. To put this in context, the cost of these schemes would be equal to about 90% of KCC’s entire annual budget. This is not good enough for government to abdicate responsibility like this and jeopardise these works.