Major projects such as Metrolink could delay road works in Louth

Major road projects such as the Dundalk Pathfinder may not be completed in their entirety due to funding cuts linked to national projects like Metrolink according to Louth County Council. 

Councillors were told at the March meeting of Louth County Council that certain projects will be prioritised over others. 

The local authority had been allocated €6.3 million in 2025 for Active Travel projects by the National Transport Authority (NTA) which included €2.65 million for the Dundalk Pathfinder on the Inner Relief Road. 

Green Party councillor Marianne Butler questioned if Louth County Council still had access to that funding. 

"I'm just trying to understand what happened to the €2.65 million. At some point did the NTA say it’s not there anymore, and why wasn’t it an option to roll it into 2026? 

We’re here trying to do one junction in 2026 under three different schemes but if we had that €2.65 million from last year you’d be able to tackle more junctions and more parts of the scheme," she said.

David Jones, Director of Major Capital Projects and Infrastructure Delivery with Louth County Council said each allocation from the NTA is an annual allocation that does not rollover to the following year. 

"It’s allocated in January and if you spend it over the course of the year you spend it, if you don’t, you don’t. It’s doesn’t roll into subsequent years, so it’s not a rolling programme. 

That’s the difficulty with the Active Travel programme, that the budget doesn’t go with it into the next calendar year," he said. 

The 2026 allocation from the NTA for Active Travel projects was reduced to €4 million, with €800,000 earmarked for the Dundalk Pathfinder. 

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Mr Jones said major capital projects such as the proposed Metrolink has caused local authority budgets to decrease nationwide. 

"So we are in a situation where our allocation for 2026 is €4 million, and that has to take into account staff costs, safe routes to schools and projects that we’re committed to in terms of closing out," he said. 

Mr Jones said Louth County Council has met with the NTA about its plans for 2026 and said it has to prioritise which projects get completed. 

He said the local authority's priority is to complete works to the Xerox Junction in Dundalk and the Drogheda Pathfinder project which received a further €550,000.

Mr Jones confirmed Louth County Council had submitted documents for approval to the NTA in September of 2025 but received no response. 

"We will work on that particular project with the view of entering into a contract, we submitted the Gateway 5 approval to the NTA in September and no response was issued on that submission. 

Projects will not proceed in their entirety as previously envisaged, and we have to cut our cloth into the budget we have been allocated," he said. 

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.