Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As Deputy Catherine Murphy has to go at 10.30 a.m., I will take her questions first.

Deputy Catherine Murphy spoke of the relationship between roads and public transport. The 2016 breakdown shows a 43% spend on roads and a 35% spend on public transport. The answer to the Deputy's question, of course, is that both of them need a great deal more funding. I certainly would be open to ideas on that but the Deputy is really saying public transport needs more funding and that the roads are getting a great deal. I would agree with her. We are very short of funding in the Department because infrastructure is so incredibly important in the long term. It was Deputy Munster who mentioned that and who stated that we must take long-term decisions because short-term decisions are not any good. The Deputy correctly stated that short-term decisions are more expensive.

In both these cases, long-term funding is needed. If you give to one, you take from the other. It is a difficult decision. I do not know. I would certainly consider that but my main thrust will be to go to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to ask for larger sums for capital investment overall. I think he is fairly sympathetic to that ambition. He seems to have singled out transport when he spoke about the additional money and the extra fiscal space. He has always specifically mentioned the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport as one of his top three priorities. He appreciates that having previously served as Minister in the Department.

I would be loath to say I want to change the relationship between those two figures because I know that the roads and infrastructure elsewhere would suffer if I did. However, I take the Deputy’s point about public transport. I know she is committed to public transport and that it will be necessary - particularly in Dublin, where there is terrible congestion - to improve the capital investment in it. The proposal for the DART underground was put in the deep freeze in 2010. It is now in the fridge. There is every intention of its being a project. It is being designed and kept alive and will certainly be eligible for EU funding. We must not lose sight of that project along with metro north and others. If funds became available, the timetable for that and the DART underground should be looked at anew because they are so important. I do not know whether we have an analysis of the economics of the side benefits the Deputy mentioned. I will ask the Department about that afterwards. It is certainly long term.

The Department examines the big-ticket items regularly. It changed and updated its capital appraisal rules this year for that very reason to examine the relationships between these spending items and I hope we may come up with changes. We should be coming up with them all the time in any event. It is not something that should be set in stone because of the changing demands in the areas of transport and roads. It would be wrong for me to say we are going to change it and spend more on public transport and less on roads because that would have detrimental effects elsewhere but I will keep it under constant review. The interesting point here is whether we should be making big decisions of that nature. Perhaps we should but I do not want to make any promises about that now.

We do have serious climate change obligations and the amount given to sustainable transport initiatives, €14 million, is too small. We will certainly have to give serious consideration to that. We will be under pressure from overseas to do so. Our commitment to our emissions targets needs to be stepped up. I will review all of these matters over the summer. I do not want to do anything too dramatic in the first three to five months because it would probably be premature and I do not know enough about the subject. I will review this relationship and other similar matters, perhaps in the autumn, because they certainly should be reviewed.

They may go against many of my instincts but subventions are here to stay.

They increased by 13% this year. They are absolutely essential for those who are left out by the system. Public transport should not be completely dictated by the market. If we are looking for changes in the semi-State organisations, particularly in the subventions to Iarnród Éireann, CIE and the subsidiaries, we should look for more efficiencies. There are areas where there is still scope for efficiencies. It would be totally unrealistic to say that subventions are going to be cut much further, they have been cut very far already. If we have a commitment to public transport, which we do, the subventions are part of that. Unless we intend to privatise these particular semi-State bodies, which I do not, we have to accept that subventions are part of that landscape. The size may vary from time to time but certainly they are here to stay for the near future.

I will ask Mr. Mullaney to answer the Deputy’s question on the under-investment in road repairs.