Mr. Fred Barry:

I will respond to Senator Mooney's question on the N16 in County Leitrim. I agree completely with Senator Mooney that work on the N16 has been pushed back several times. I do not have good news for the Senator today. Some members may recall the 2005 policy Transport 21, which sets out a programme for improving all of the country's national roads. The plan was to do the inter-urban motorways, the large expensive jobs, such as the Dublin Port tunnel and others and after that the NRA and local authorities would address all of the other national roads that needed to be addressed. The N16 was one such road. What has happened is that we got to the point of improving the motorway network but around that time, the funding slowed up very much and consequently work on other roads, including the N16, has slowed down. The N16 is in the same position as all of the other national roads in that we acknowledge they need improvement, but until the funding situation improves, the NRA cannot advance them further.