The cost of the Narrow Water Bridge sky-rocketed from an estimated £500,000 to €100 million after officials turned down a proposal to fund it as early as the 1970s, the Northern Ireland State archives have revealed.
As far back as 1975, there was a proposal to construct a bridge linking the two jurisdictions of the Republic and Northern Ireland at the Narrow Water river crossing between counties Down and Louth.
Had the job been done 49 years ago, in today’s money it would have cost an estimated £4 million.
Louth County Council had made the proposal for the bridge in 1975 with an estimated cost to Northern Ireland of £200,000.
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The responding Northern Ireland official, a Mr T A Harrison showed some enthusiasm for the project linking Warrenpoint to Omeath but the financial cupboard was bare.
“At present I cannot see money being available for this work,” he wrote, although adding, “It is a proposal which is most attractive from a tourist point of view and is worthy of further consideration in the future.”
He was informed by engineers that it was estimated that 1,500 vehicles per day would use the bridge at the height of the summer, with lower usage in the winter.
An engineer’s report forwarded to Mr Harrison concluded that the job was “quite feasible”, but stated, “The likely usage appears to be too low to justify participation in such inessential expenditure, especially in the current financial scene and the competing work of infinitely greater necessity in Newry.”
The engineer added, “If Louth County Council wish to pursue the idea of an Omeath-Warrenpoint link, perhaps they should examine the possibility of introducing a car ferry. The Northern contribution to such a venture could perhaps be the provision of a slipway at Warrenpoint – commercial risk and profits (if any) to Louth County Council.”
Finally, 49 years later the project is going ahead with a contribution of €102 million made available from the Government’s Shared Island fund. Taoiseach Simon Harris attended a ground-breaking ceremony in June this year marking the beginning of the construction of the 195m cable-stayed bridge connecting Cornamucklagh near Omeath with Narrow Water near Warrenpoint.
Mr Harris said the project was worth “every single cent” of the Government’s commitment.
“I don’t think any one of us can fully capture the benefits that this is going to bring; the benefits in terms of connectedness, in terms of communities wanting to engage, but also the really practical benefit, and it is the hugely economic benefits that we’re going to see from this in terms of tourism.” he said.
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