‘Talk about an absolute farce’ – Mayo councillor criticises Government over funding allocations for active travel projects
A Mayo representative has criticised Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), Minister for Transport Dara O’Brien, and the decision-making process behind the allocation of public funding for active travel schemes.
Cllr Donna Sheridan spoke out after the Balla Active Travel Scheme was left out of a €11.3 million funding allocation awarded to other projects across Mayo by the Department of Transport.
The N60 Pollavaddy to Balla Active Travel Facility proposes a standalone cycleway and walkway along or near the N60, linking the Heathlawn Active Travel facility at Pollavaddy Junction with Balla Town.
The project is currently at Phase Three, the design and environmental evaluation stage.
Mayo County Council had applied for €615,000 to progress the scheme. At the moment, the cycleway ends at Pollavaddy, leaving the section from Heathlawn to Balla incomplete.
“Talk about an absolute farce,” Cllr Sheridan said at the January meeting of Castlebar Municipal District Council.
She expressed her dismay that €20m had already been invested in the section from Heathlawn to Pollavaddy, which was completed in 2024, yet the remainder of the scheme remains unfinished.
Why waste public money? It should be up in front of the Public and Accounts Committee
She criticised that, despite two public consultations, the active travel project as a whole remains incomplete.
“There is a fabulous road, a fabulous cycleway, and then boom - it stops when you get to the bridge,” she explained.
The Fine Gael councillor said the community in Balla has campaigned for the completion of the scheme for years. She added that the Minister’s decision has left the greenway in limbo, leaving the community feeling let down.
“I’m not saying Pollavaddy is in the middle of nowhere - but if you’re a five-year-old on a bike, it’s the middle of nowhere. How are you going to get the next kilometre into Balla?” she asked.
She criticised the decision not to include the scheme in the recent active travel funding allocation, calling it “farcical”.
She proposed that the council ask Minister O’Brien to meet with the Castlebar Municipal District and the Balla community to explain the “absurd decision.”
“We have stood, and we will stand with members of the community there,” she said.
I am calling out TII - it’s a disgrace
Cllr Sheridan also questioned the wider decision-making process for allocating funding to active travel schemes. She voiced frustration that “faceless bureaucrats” in the Department review schemes, take them to the planning stage, and fail to provide funding.
“Why waste public money? It should be up in front of the Public and Accounts Committee,” she said.
Cllr Sheridan then called out TII, urging them to stop starting projects only to complete them halfway before abandoning them.
The councillor also called out Transport Infrastructure Ireland, urging them to stop starting projects that are only completed halfway before being abandoned.
She cited similar schemes in Castlebar, where projects receive multiple funding announcements over several years but never reach construction.
“I am calling out TII - it’s a disgrace,” she said, “I want us to write to the Minister asking him to come here. Meet the people of Balla and face us, the public reps and the community, and tell us how he can defend this decision,” she said.
A consultant was appointed to the scheme in January in order to provide technical and environmental data to help progress the scheme to Phase Four.
This article has been funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.