Just as one road controversy - the inner relief road in Sligo - seems to have been settled for the county's local authorities, another is about to erupt. This concerns the realignment of the N17, which runs south from Sligo to Galway.
There is no doubt the road needs to be straightened and its surface improved. Indeed, some work has already been done; a new section from the N4 bypassing the village of Collooney is about six miles long.
To the south of the county there is another improved portion of road. It runs for about four miles from the village of Curry, bypassing the village (though running close to it) and ending up in Bellahy-Charlestown (Bellahy is in Sligo, Charlestown in Mayo).
This was completed in 1992, at a cost of £5 million. It ran alongside the original road and involved demolishing a number of houses, cutting through farmland, building a new bridge at the village and creating a new, much wider road which has considerable hard shoulder space.
But it appears this new stretch of road is now to be abandoned, much to the annoyance of many residents of Curry and the surrounding area. In the words of one villager, "the bypass is to be bypassed".
While officials of Sligo Co Council insist no decision has been taken on the route of the new road, and would not be until next month, local people believe the decision has in fact been made, citing planning permissions along the various options that have been either granted or refused.
There are five options for the new road, including maintaining the existing route and upgrading it. However, few believe this option - although the cheapest, and what was planned originally - will now find favour with the National Roads Authority and the county council. Each of the other four options will cost between £5 million and £7 million more to build, including the cost of demolishing and replacing houses.
Asked why the plan to upgrade the road and join it to the recently built Curry-Charlestown road had been abandoned, Ms Catriona McDaniel, the engineer with Sligo County Council responsible for the road, said more money became available for roads under the National Development Plan. "The NRA asked us to look at bypassing Curry and Charlestown."
She agreed it was unusual for so much of a new road to be jettisoned, but said that, based on the NRA's calculations of money lost by traffic hold-ups and accidents, the improved road had already paid for itself.
The NRA sets the objectives for road development, while the local authority carries out the work, including design and planning. The advantages and disadvantages of the various options are put to the NRA, including archaeological and ecological considerations, number of junctions, number of houses requiring demolition and number of farms that will be severed. The objective of the NRA is to create a road where traffic can travel at an average speed of 50 miles an hour.
There has been public consultation about the new routes and around 140 submissions have been received - a high number given the low population of the area.
One of the objectors is Mr John Gallagher, who has a farm on the Curry side of Tubbercurry. He bases his objections on the fact that Sligo County Council has given no consideration to the restoration of the rail track from Collooney to Claremorris, which would have tourist potential, could divert heavy goods traffic and reduce traffic saturation levels on the N17.
The proposed road will involve further interference with the track, he says, pointing out that EU policy on supporting road development requires interconnection with other modes of transport. He also objects to options 2a, 3a and 4 on ecological and archaeological grounds.
He is critical of what he sees as waste and bad planning on the part of the council, which built a new road a few years ago and is now prepared to abandon it. He is also concerned that one of the options will sever his farm and require him to travel about two miles to get from one half to another.
Bypassing the village of Curry will also take traffic away from a hotel and restaurant built within the past few years to attract passing trade. According to Ms McDaniel, it is now the policy of the NRA to force traffic off roads in order to access such facilities.
Whatever decision is made next month, not everyone will be happy and Mr Gallagher, for one, is determined to take his objections further. But what emerges from this saga is that road and transport policy seems to be driven primarily, not by what communities want, but by the availability of money and by the assumption that faster is always better - even while other State agencies attempt to discourage speed.