THE NORTHERN Executive has allocated close to £600 million for major roads and hospital projects, prompting Sinn Féin politicians to call on the Government to fully honour a previous commitment to help fund road upgrading in Northern Ireland.
First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness chaired a specially convened meeting of the Executive at Stormont yesterday to agree the allocation of £583.7 million (€694 million) for six major projects.
More than half of the allocation – £330 million – will go to develop two sections of the A5, which runs from the Border at Aughnacloy, Co Tyrone, to Derry city, a project which the Government had previously planned to support with £400 million of funding.
These sections will be from Derry to north of Strabane, and south of Omagh to Ballygawley in Co Tyrone.
The Executive is spending £105 million to take forward the A8 Belfast to Larne dual carriageway, and £57 million on the A2 at Greenisland on the outskirts of north Belfast.
It is allocating £28.5 million towards the next phase of the Altnagelvin hospital refurbishment in Derry and £63.2 million to speed up completion of the new Omagh hospital and phase B of the Ulster Hospital at Dundonald in east Belfast.
Mr Robinson said the projects would create more than 2,500 jobs for Northern Ireland’s “hard-pressed construction industry”, further improve the roads infrastructure and significantly upgrade healthcare infrastructure in Belfast, Omagh and Derry.
He hoped that in the future, the Government would be in a position to help ensure the full upgrading of the A5.
Mr McGuinness said: “The economic difficulties experienced by the Irish Government have severely impacted on their support to date for the A5 project, but I hope in light of these developments that they will reprofile their expenditure and increase their commitment to the project in coming years.”
Under the St Andrews Agreement, the two administrations were to share the £800 million cost of upgrading the 50-mile A5 road, which would additionally have improved access to Letterkenny and north Donegal.
However, late last year the Government withdrew most of its planned funding due to the economic downturn. But it insisted it remained “politically committed” to begin work on the programme before 2016 and was treating the decision as a deferral rather than a cancellation of the project. It nonetheless is to allocate £50 million in the coming years to assist the development.
The North’s Minister for Finance, Sammy Wilson, told the Assembly yesterday that the “difficult economic circumstances facing our Southern neighbours are well known and in that light, the Irish Government has now revised its contribution to £50 million spread evenly over the 2014- 15 and 2015-16 financial years”.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams welcomed the announcement and urged the Government to review its decision to pull back on most of its funding. Referring to the jobs generation plan announced on Monday, Mr Adams said: “If it is serious about creating new jobs and investing in the economy, particularly in disadvantaged areas like the northwest, then it should immediately review and reverse its decision to cut funding to the A5 project.”
A spokesman for the Department of Transport welcomed the Executive funding. With regard to calls from Sinn Féin for funding to be brought forward for the A5, he said it should be noted that Sinn Féin’s pre-budget submission did not include any proposals for additional funding for any transport projects by the Government.
“It would be helpful if representatives of Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland could adopt consistent positions,” he said.
