Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his reply. In this day and age, it is fantastic to see constituents and groups willing to put their hands in their own pockets to help improve the road facilities.

There has been a failure on the part of local authorities to help out and these roads have been neglected for the past number of years due to the state of the economy. It would be a great scheme to get back up and running. Money has been given to local authorities in recent years and it has been spent in other areas but the neglect of the roads and the potholes are such that when citizens and group schemes are willing to put their hands in their pockets to contribute, we should look into it.

I mentioned the Ardee N52 bypass and I think bypasses will be very important going forward as they could help develop town centres. We should contribute towards the A5 but with the UK leaving the EU, we should look into other joint ventures we have with the North. Some €75 million is an awful lot to contribute to roads when we do not know what is going to happen in the future. It is important that we re-evaluate the money we propose to invest, North and South.