Brian Walsh (Galway West, Independent)
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444. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to detail the position regarding the contracts for the development of the N18 Gort-Tuam motorway; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20008/14]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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As Minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport, I have responsibility for overall policy and funding in relation to the national roads programme.  The planning, design and implementation of individual road projects is a matter for the National Roads Authority (NRA) under the Roads Acts 1993 to 2007 in conjunction with the local authorities concerned.

With Minister Howlin, I attended the signing of the contract for the N17/N18 Gort Tuam PPP on Wednesday 30 April 2014.  The contracting authority is the National Roads Authority and this scheme is a non-tolled PPP.  The contract consortium is Direct Route, whose members include Roadbridge, John Sisk, Lagan, three large Irish civil engineering firms and Strabag of Austria. The Gort-Tuam PPP project is one of a number of road projects identified in the Government's Financial Stimulus Package. Now that the contract has been concluded and signed the NRA will be in a position to prepare the project implementation schedule.The NRA has allocated €3.25m to the project in 2014. The expected construction time for this project is 3.5 years and the project is expected to be completed in 2018.  Overall scheme value is approximately €550 million.