The State's first motorway to be built by public-private partnership, the 39km Kilcock-Kinnegad road in the midlands, will begin construction in five weeks' time, the Minister for Transport announced yesterday.
However, Mr Brennan said he was not satisfied with proposed toll facilities for the motorway and had asked the National Roads Authority to use the first years of the 3½-year construction period to come up with a more "free-flowing" design for the toll plazas.
In advance of the new design, the authority has inserted a clause in the construction and operation contract stipulating that, if five or more cars are queueing at the toll booth, the gates have to be lifted, at the contractors' expense, until congestion is eased.
With a projected opening date of late 2006, the road will run roughly parallel with the existing Dublin-Galway N6 from Kilcock through Cos Kildare, Meath and Westmeath to just south of the existing Kinnegad interchange between the N4 and the N6.
It is expected to reduce journey times between Dublin and Galway by about half-an-hour.
The total cost is estimated at €420 million, of which the State will pay €100 million for land and a further €170 million towards construction costs.
The builders, Eurolink, a consortium of the Irish company, SIAC, and Cintra Concesiones of Spain, will provide the rest of the finance, about €150 million, which is being financed by the European Investment Bank.
In return for its investment Eurolink will receive a concession from the Government to collect tolls on the motorway for 30 years, during which it hopes to recoup its construction and annual maintenance costs.
In addition, Eurolink will be required to invest in the road towards the end of the concession period prior to handback, in order to ensure a satisfactory residual life.
Speaking at the announcement yesterday, the Minister acknowledged that he was not convinced that tolling was the best way to go in all cases and that each motorway tolling scheme should be assessed on its merits.
While he would keep an open mind on the issue, in the case of the Kilcock-Kinnegad scheme he was supportive of the project.
The chief executive of the National Roads Authority, Mr Michael Tobin, said that if the road was to be financed in the normal way, the cost of construction alone would be close to €500 million.
There would, he said, be no extra payments for unforeseen items in the design of the road, and the State's construction investment was capped at €170 million.
Mr Tobin also said that in future public-private partnerships the private sector would be asked to design as well as build new roads, and the Minister explained that "design-and-build" was fundamentally a fixed-price contract.
In the past criticism has been levelled at the National Roads Authority when costs rose because road-builders found significant local factors which were not in the initial design.
