Thread by @SlieveCoillte

THREAD 1/ Emotive words on the #A5 from @SDLPlive & @sinnfeinireland cloud harsh realities for the project. Firstly: the highly critical report of the 3rd public inquiry since 2007 has been published, with most of its recommendations accepted by @deptinfra a5wtc.com/Publication-of…

2/ The main recommendations are well summarised by @niroads here:

https://twitter.com/niroads/status/1371806968667602951?s=20

Also, @deptinfra agreed to a) assess alternative upgrade schemes (never undertaken in detail) and b) take account of climate change and reqs of Paris Agreement (omitted in 2016 update).

3/ Bizarre therefore that media stories present a) a project merely 'delayed', and b) political 'commitments' to project completion in spite of actual commitments to re-examine the project's fundamentals (finance, legality, operational need, design...) bbc.com/news/uk-northe…

4/ The ongoing cost of unwavering political 'commitment' to an unstarted 15yo project with less than 1/4 of its budget (around £240m out of £1.2billion total cost, £100m already spent), already scuppered by the High Court and now faced with new, myriad legal and design hurdles...

5/ ...was noted by the Inquiry. Yet @NicholaMallon and @EamonRyan remain 'committed' (in £/€) to the road as a political imaginary. In 2015 @PatDohertySF (fmr MP) even claimed the A5 had been "delivered".

6/ It's easy to forget that the #A5WTC was hatched as a side-deal in the 2006 St Andrew's Agreement talks under Blair and Ahern; before the '08 financial crash, the Climate Change Act, austerity... and has not changed one jot to reflect developments since. irishtimes.com/news/brown-mak…

7/ After the Irish govt pulled the promised 50% funding (£400m) 2011 due to austerity, the @niexecutive decided to advance anyway on the first of three phases (Derry to Strabane), identified in the PI report as a flood risk. "Commitments" would ensure the balance after austerity.

8/ The thing is that mega-projects of this scale (50% more expensive than Dublin's Port Tunnel), carried out according to neoliberal "growth machine" logics, are usually reflexive to setbacks and shocks. It took @deptinfra until 2018 to finally concede what was known in 2013...

9/ I.e. that the project needed a new environmental study & alternative options to justify it. So @deptinfra submitted *the same* project with updated environmental studies in 2016. The inquiry found these inadequate, and recommended yet more new ones, accepted by the Department.

10/ Q: At what point does it become clear that this cyclical process of "commitment" will not produce any road? At what point do the "committed" accept that a project designed at the apex of late Celtic Tiger neoliberal largesse will not cut it in the 2020s?

11/ A: Not yet, apparently. @NicholaMallon restated her "commitment" as Minister immediately, as her department "committed" to a plethora of dense studies at public expense to justify the impossible, possibly by 2024. No u-turns, ever. infrastructure-ni.gov.uk/news/mallon-co…

12/ But even this "commitment" is not enough for the SDLP's @McCrossanMLA, who would apparently prefer that a minister and party colleague push on with a project regardless of its increasingly clear precarity, if not basic unviability: ianjamesparsley.wordpress.com/2021/03/17/wit…

13/ @McCrossanMLA wants to "name and shame" those he blames for the project's failure. Reality check: i) poor design, short-circuited governance and "do rightly" politics are the main causes of A5 failure; ii) legitimate objections have been vindicated. facebook.com/81428697199432…

14/ Perhaps @SDLPlive could have a word with @McCrossanMLA before deflections cross the line & become outright incitement against lawful objectors (CC @NIPSO_Comms)? Since when did objecting to a road project become grounds for an MLA to demonise constituents?

15/ The road safety and climate change arguments trump the original economic growth rationale for any A5 upgrade. Chasing motorway unicorns will result in more accidents. Time to use the existing budget for a safe 2+1 upgrade and improved public transport? ftbchambers.co.uk/news/departmen…

16/ Repeated mentions of a 2+1 scheme as being a) omitted as an option by @deptinfra & b) statutorily required as a viable planning option should leave @nicholamallon in no doubt as to the answer to this quandary: a 2+1 safety and public transport upgrade. Take cars off the road.