Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late. I was at another meeting next door.

We live in a small country in which many roads have been built. That is welcome. The journey time to Galway is now, by and large, two hours if one gets out on to the motorway system. The journey to Cork is two and half hours. The problem has been the linking of public transport to the road network to make it more attractive for people to move outside of cities and live in towns within a reasonable distance. This will not be achieved unless there is an integrated plan involving working with those in transport, road networks and so on. Substantial investment should be made now when interest rates at practically at zero. As we all know from our days on local authorities, it takes a very long time from the planning stage to the building of any development. By the time we get around to the dream that I have, interest rates will have increased and we will back to the response being that there is no money available. I do not receive complaints from people about the paying of tolls. Tolling is an accepted practice now, provided the tolls are reasonable. This small country could be transformed. We could transform towns that are dying. Young married couples are paying €500,000 to €600,000 for three-bedroomed semi-detatched houses in places I represent in Dún Laoghaire and other parts of south County Dublin when they could buy mansions for that amount 20 miles away if they could get quickly to and from their places of work.

We cannot talk about road-building in isolation from other factors. Perhaps the committee could examine the type of integration to which I refer. We could use the expertise already available and have papers, in which simple language would be used, submitted to us from which we could work out a programme that would allow us to encourage the Government to use the opportunity that exists to invest in building up towns - whether they be outside Cork, Killarney, Galway, Dublin or into Wicklow - in which house prices would at least be somewhat affordable for young couples trying to get a start in life. We could also encourage the creation of a reasonable public transport system or a tolling system to facilitate this. Such provision would be a key part to the development of this country and not only one region of it and would improving people's quality of life.

If I was to drive by car from Killiney to Leinster House at peak times, the journey could take an hour. I am fortunate that I can get the DART. People who know the Rock Road will be aware that one could be caught in a traffic jam and that a journey of eight or nine miles could take an hour to complete. There is an opportunity to invest now when interest rates are so low, when we have borrowing capacity and when our finances are, to a reasonable extent, back up and running. Now is the time to put in place an overall plan. Projects should not be completed in isolation. Rather, they should be integrated into an overall plan that would lead to the development of towns and villages throughout this country, that would lead to these places being brought back to life and that would improve people's quality of life.