Mr. Michael Nolan:

The first priority is more money for investing in asset renewals as we have a network valued at €32 billion, of which €12 billion is invested in pavement - the part of the road network that keeps us on the straight and narrow but which degrades the most. We need to repave 400 km of the national road network, some 10%, on an annual basis but we are not even getting to 25% of that. We should be spending €140 million per year and the longer the deficit goes on the longer it takes to return the network to a certain condition. Network renewals and maintaining assets are our first priority.

The second priority would be a sufficient number of schemes for the next capital investment plan to deal with an increasing population growth and to connect regions, spreading the benefits of infrastructure more evenly around the country. The other area is congestion in urban areas, relieving localised bottlenecks and dealing with public transport.