THERE HAS been furious reaction in Co Kerry to the "rescheduling" of a €30 million bypass to alleviate traffic congestion at Castleisland.
Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey has listed the bypass among six road projects nationally that have been deferred for at least a year.
The bypass - 5.4kms of single-carriageway - is the final section of the N21 project that links the N21 to the N23 southwest of Castleisland.
The National Roads Authority (NRA) had told campaigners the earliest they could hope for a bypass would be from 2010 to 2016.
The Castleisland bypass became a hotly-debated general election issue in 2007, with threats to boycott Fianna Fáil's Kerry North deputy Tom McEllistrim if it did not get a go-ahead.
However, during a visit to the town weeks before the election the then minister for transport Martin Cullen announced he had found "spare capacity" in the roads budget and said the bypass was being "accelerated" to begin in 2008.
In the past year land has been bought and the €30 million project has gone out to tender.
Campaigners yesterday said they were hugely disappointed at the news. They believed they had all-party support for the project and it was on schedule.
Yesterday independent Kerry councillor Brendan Cronin said he was calling on Independent TD Jackie Healy-Rae "to stand up now and defend Castleisland and its people" by voting against the postponing of the bypass.
Contacted yesterday, Mr Healy-Rae said he had got "a pile of things sorted out for south Kerry" before the Budget. He was disappointed about the bypass, but he had made a deal with the Government and he was not going back on it as the Government had fulfilled commitments to him.