Mr. Michael Nolan:

On the long-term or really long-term plans, there was a proposal in 2000. We were asked by the Department to carry out a feasibility study on a Dublin outer orbital route, or a Leinster outer orbital route that would connect Drogheda, Navan, perhaps the area around Kilcock and Enfield, and Naas, thus creating another corridor that would give some relief to long-distance traffic and perhaps connect to some of the radial routes coming out of Dublin. That would be a hugely expensive project. It could be between 70 km and 100 km in length, to motorway standard. It is just not on our radar at the moment. We submitted the feasibility report to the Department about ten years ago. It would bring some relief to the M50, but on the M50 over the next few years we are to implement a lot of short and medium-term measures, basically to sweat the asset without any significant land acquisition along the length of the road. We actually have measures. Ultimately, the main solution will be demand management in the form of multi-point tolling on the M50.