Mr. Fred Barry:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for the invitation to appear before the committee today to discuss the National Roads Authority's 2011 accounts and Chapter 6 of the 2011 annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts.

The year 2011 represented a transition year from completion of the major inter-urban route network, which was achieved in 2010, to focusing on managing and maintaining the road asset already in place and improving safety and removing bottlenecks. While network improvements will continue and are much needed, the mix of improvements in coming years will see an increasing proportion of single carriageways and an increased focus on the upgrading of the national secondary road network.

The Government's Infrastructure Investment Priorities 2010-2016 plan acknowledged that the road network should be maintained to a sufficient standard to ensure that the value of the original capital investment does not depreciate prematurely over the coming years. The Infrastructure and Capital Investment 2012-2016 capital spending programme stated "amongst the main priorities over the medium term will be ensuring adequate maintenance of the national road network in order to protect the value of previous investments and target the improvement of specific road segments where there is a clear economic justification".

The replacement cost of the national road network is in the order of €30 billion and on the basis of a 20 to 30 year average life cycle, it would deteriorate to the extent of €1 billion to €1.5 billion per year in the absence of this investment. With this focus and mindful of the limited funding levels planned for 2012 to 2016, inclusive, the authority's priorities were reviewed in 2011 as follows.

Priority 1 is asset management, network rehabilitation and network operations. The first priority beyond existing liabilities is to maintain the asset value of the network and ensure its reliability and functionality. This is critical to ensure that the network performs efficiently and safely and continues to support national economic competitiveness.

Priority 2 is national secondary roads improvements, bottleneck improvement projects, safety projects and traffic management projects. Most of the national secondary network routes are deficient in terms of capacity, safety and alignment. The authority will seek to implement improvements as funding permits.

Priority 3 is major improvement projects. The investment in the national road network in recent years has vastly improved many of the busiest and most strategic national roads. However, there remain many improvement schemes highly desirable from the perspective of economic benefit, safety, regional growth, competitiveness and quality of life, and these will be advanced as funding permits. These priorities were reflected in the authority's work programme for 2011, and, indeed, since.

There are two particularly significant developments since 2011 that should be highlighted. One is that the planned merger of the NRA with the Railway Procurement Agency is being actively advanced and may well come to fruition this year. The other is that the Government announced a PPP stimulus programme in 2012 which includes three major roads schemes: the N17-N18 Gort to Tuam, the N25 New Ross bypass, and the N11 Gorey to Enniscorthy.

We have, as requested, submitted a briefing paper, and will of course be happy to answer the committee's questions. If the committee has any questions that we cannot answer today, we will, as always, follow up with a written response.