The 100 million project, headed by Ferrovial Agroman, is a result of the Good Friday Agreement
Ireland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, and the Northern Ireland Regional Development Minister, Conor Murphy, today inaugurated the A1/N1 Newry-Dundalk motorway linking the two countries. The cross-border road, built by a consortium comprising Ferrovial-Agromán and Irish company SIAC Construction, halves the journey time between Dublin and Belfast.
The motorway is of great symbolic and political importance as it is a direct outcome of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which laid the foundations for peace in Northern Ireland. The project is an example of the climate of cooperation between the Irish and British governments. In fact, the two countries’ road authorities, Ireland’s National Road Authority (NRA) and Northern Ireland’s Road Services (RS), established a joint venture to finance and build the road.
The motorway inaugurated today is 15 kilometres long: 5 km in the UK and 10 km in the Republic of Ireland. Additionally, 6 kilometres of secondary roads were built, along with 14 structures and 3 interchanges. The contract amounted to nearly 100 million euro and was executed in euro and sterling under a “target costing” system. The motorway inauguration is five months ahead of schedule.
Strengthened presence in the Irish infrastructure market
The A1/N1 Newry-Dundalk link road is the second motorway to be built in Ireland by Ferrovial; it also built the Eurolink N4-N6 Kinnegad-Kilcock road, which was inaugurated in December 2005. Ferrovial, which entered the Irish market four years ago, is also building the 47-kilometre M3 Clonee-Kells road, worth 500 million euro, for a consortium headed by Cintra. It is also upgrading Dublin’s M50 beltway for South Dublin County Council in a project worth 150 million euro. And Ferrovial has been pre-selected for a DBFO (Design, Build, Finance, Operate) contract in Northern Ireland for three segments of motorway, to extend the N1 motorway that was inaugurated today. Amey, Ferrovial’s UK services subsidiary, will head the consortium managing the infrastructure.
