Austrian company to build Irish motorway

An Austrian company is part of a group that has taken on the task of constructing and running part of an Irish motorway.

Strabag SE, a technology company that provides construction services, is part of the DirectRoute consortium who won the contract for the construction job, they announced on Monday.

The Vienna-based company has a 25% in the consortium who are carrying out the public-private partnership project, which they say involves a total private sector investment value of about 330 million EUR.

Construction will begin on the motorway between Gort and Tuam near the city of Galway this month, with the road planned to be open for business by November 2017.

The opening of the motorway to traffic will mark the start of a 25-year operating period for this section and on completion of the scheme, the consortium will receive monthly payments from the National Roads Authority of Ireland who contracted out the work.