Limerick County Council has expressed concern at the progress of the work, which now looks highly unlikely to be finished at all this year.

"We have concerns about the progress of the motorway. These issues are being dealt with according to the contract, and there are procedures for dealing with delays. There isn'tmuch more I can say at the moment," Paul Crowe, senior engineer said.


Now the Labour candidate for Europe, Senator Alan Kelly, wants answers. He wants Transport Minister Noel Dempsey to step in and resolve the situation. "Has he got involved at all? Why hasn't he asked what is happening?" he said.

Cllr Noel Gleeson said that people living on distributor roads along the route of the motorway are living in a nightmare world.

"Those roads are a holy show, all potholed and ripped up. The main work should be coming to an end by now, but now there's no money to repair the distributor roads. In future money should be allocated for such repairs." Cllr Gleeson said he believed that the work on the motorway had slowed down because of the failure to pay sub contractors.

John O'Brien, liaison engineer on the site said that, contrary to rumour, work was continuing.

"There are issues, but we're waiting for the contractor to come back with information on the new completion date," he said.

The contractor, Bothar Hibernian, a consortium comprising Ml McNamara and Company, Coffey Construction Ltd and Mota Engil, couldn't be
contacted for a comment this Wednesday.

Mr O'Brien would not comment on any possible penalties for failure to finish by the scheduled date saying "that is a contractual matter".

But Senator Kelly said that there were "serious concerns". "The work is way behind schedule and it certainly will not finish this summer. As well as that many of the sub contractors are still owed money despite promises made to politicians at Christmas," he said.

He also said that there was "a serious lack of information" from the contractors and from Limerick County Council.

He said that the unfinished road was posing problems for everyone. Commuters were fed up of facing long queues every morning at the temporary roundabout provided on the N7 at the turn-off to Castleconnell.

"There's a long tailback there every morning and it's a huge inconvenience to business in Limerick city and to the university. People thought this would be over soon. Now they don't know when it will end."

Mr O'Brien said that work at the moment on the new motorway was concentrated on building a bridge over the railway near Kilmastulla and also at Carrigatoher closer to the Nenagh bypass.

"There is no work in progress at the Castleconnell interchange at the
moment. But the roundabout there is a temporary measure until the interchange is completed," he said.