Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for her questions. On the issue of congestion, one of the major issues I have stressed in my work to date is the need to decrease congestion and increase growth. This feeds into all the decisions I am presenting for the committee's approval today in relation to where I want to put the money I have and additional money. The Deputy has raised the needs of her county with me on many occasions. While I have received contact from the Deputy on many occasions on that particular part of her county and her own constituency, I have not yet received an additional formal request from the local authority in relation to needs for next year. Our position in the overall process is that once we have, hopefully, received the committee's approval, we will continue to work to decide where funding will be allocated for next year. I will be engaging with my officials on that matter in the coming week. I know the Deputy feels strongly about this issue and that the needs of her county in this respect are great, so I am aware of the point she has made to me.

On the allocation of funding for public transport, many of the needs her county will continue to have in the future will relate to a better bus service, the maintenance and improvement of the rail service, and maintenance of the road network. With this Supplementary Estimate, we hope to make a big contribution to putting in place an approved balance sheet for a public transport companies to deal with that and meeting the commitments we have already made in relation to stimulus funding. I hope that in the multi-annual capital plan the Government will publish early next year we will be able to give better guidance to some of the commuters the Deputy mentioned regarding how we will better plan for the future. That is my objective and it is something on which the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, wants to work with me.

I cannot answer the Deputy's question regarding funding for special needs now, because the Minister of State, Deputy Ring, will be involved in making decisions in this area, but I will pass on the point she has made to him.