Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Do the witnesses have a set of multipliers that show the impact of not investing in the roads network? Is it staggered over one year, three years and five years, for example? Obviously it costs more to carry out significant pieces of work.

A lack of funding will also have an impact on the capital plan. I presume that the European Investment Bank will be one of the funding sources. The money will have to be paid back but it is quite cheap to borrow at the moment.

Is it more likely an argument could be made to exceed the amount we are permitted to borrow if it assisted with climate change mitigation? Would it be more likely to be permitted if we were borrowing for, for example, rail development, particularly in urban centres? I am thinking of the DART underground project which would result in a significant volume of traffic being taken off the roads and which would also address the congestion issue, insurance costs and go some way towards meeting our climate change targets.

I am surprised to hear the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport is not doing a sectoral plan in its own right because I had understood that it was going to do so but now it is going to be reflected in the national plan. Given transport is one of the three big areas in terms of climate change targets, I would have thought it required that attention in its own right. We could take action on the area of transport but it would be more difficult to make progress on agriculture. The witnesses might reflect on that.

Funding for the A5 road project was committed in the context of us being part of the Single Market and in the context of the peace process. It would be strange if we made that investment and then found there to be a Border post at the end of that road towards the cost of which we had made a contribution. That aspect would be quite useful in terms of hearing what the attitude is or if there are discussions taking place on that. Clearly, we are now in a very changed environment from the one that prevailed when the commitment to that funding was made. Normalisation of movement between the North and the South is terrific and we do not want to see that damaged. The lack of focus on that normalisation of movement during the Brexit campaign was quite disrespectful. I would like to hear what the witnesses have to say on that.