Jurisdiction Ireland Website TII website Founded 23 December 1993 | Key document Roads Act, 1993 Headquarters Dublin | |
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Formed 23 December 1993 (1993-12-23) Dissolved 1 August 2015 (2015-08-01) State Agency of the Department of Transport executives Fred Barry, Chief Executive
Cormac O’Rourke, Chairman | ||
The National Roads Authority (NRA) (Irish: An tÚdarás um Bóithre Náisiúnta) was a state body in Ireland, responsible for the national road network. The NRA was established as part of the Roads Act 1993 and commenced operations on 23 December 1993 in accordance with S.I. 407 of 1993. The RPA merged with the Railway Procurement Agency and was effectively dissolved on 1 August 2015. The merger of the two agencies is called Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII).
County councils remain responsible for local and regional roads, as well as various tasks like setting speed limits. The NRA, meanwhile, was responsible for the planning, maintenance and construction of National Primary Routes and National Secondary Routes as well as establishing safety measures. Ireland's national road network consists of 2,739 km (1,702 mi) of National Primary Routes and 2,676 km (1,663 mi) of National Secondary Routes.
The body also plays an environmental and archaeological role as part of the road building programme, publishing an archaeology magazine, seanda, since 2006. Since 2007 it has managed the eToll toll payment interoperability system operated by Egis Projects.
The NRA was headed by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who reported to the NRA's board which in turn reported to the Minister for Transport. There were four departmental heads who reported to the CEO: the Head of Finance and Administration, the Head of Engineering Operations, the Head of PPP (Public Private Partnerships), Strategic Planning and Commercial Operations and the Head of Corporate Affairs and Professional Services.
In the previous decade, the NRA was mainly concerned with the extensive expansion of Ireland's motorway network under the National Development Plan (NDP). The Transport 21 element of the NDP involved improvements to Ireland's transport networks including its roads. The NRA was responsible for making major improvements to key roads, especially the Major Inter-Urban Routes. These routes were the N1/M1 (Dublin - north of Dundalk), the N4/M4/N6/M6 (Dublin - Kinnegad-Galway), the N7/M7 (Dublin-Limerick), the N8/M8 (Portlaoise-Cork) and the N9/M9 (near Naas-Waterford).
Major improvements were also made to many other national primary and national secondary routes, most notably the Atlantic Corridor routes (N15, N17, N18, N20, N24, N25) and the N11/M11 (Dublin - Wexford).