Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On this issue of infrastructure, here and there throughout the plan, specific projects are mentioned in a hodgepodge fashion. Specific roads are mentioned, the M20 and so on, and reference is made to general improvements. I would have thought a national approach would take cognisance of the fact that over half of the national primary routes are now either dual carriageway or motorway. It would have been reasonable to include in the plan a statement that the objective between now and 2040 - a period of some 23 years - would be that every national primary route would be dual carriageway or motorway. Westport to Castlebar is proposed as a narrow dual carriageway, not as a motorway. That is satisfactory. However, if we want connectivity across this island for all our people, the first thing we need is a good spinal link. In the last 20 years, we have done about half of them. We had virtually no motorway or dual carriageway 20 years ago. The remaining half is the cheaper half. Having completed that work, we will have connected places like Cavan, Monaghan, Letterkenny, Donegal town, Ballina and all the areas around them. We will have connected Killarney and Tralee to the national road network in a sensible way. It is very achievable. We will then find that there is a certain section of the country that is very far removed from national primary routes, a matter Fianna Fáil had included in Transport 21.

It states the Government will focus on upgrading coastal national secondary routes, including Skibbereen, the Ring of Kerry, Dingle, west Clare, west Galway and west Mayo - the N59 - as well as the N56 in County Donegal. When that is done, nowhere in the country will be strategically far from anywhere else.

There is another thing that I do not understand about the plan. It is bitterly written and without a big vision. There are many railway lines throughout the country, some of which are utilised, some of which are half-utilised and some of which are totally unutilised. There does not seem to be a comprehensive plan to look at the existing rail infrastructure, including from Claremorris to Galway, and ask, since the Minister of State is so focused on cities, if there is a need for rapid commuter services into the cities. This is not mentioned anywhere, even though, for example, there are more railway lines around Limerick than any other city. They include the lines to and from Nenagh, the cement company and Foynes. At very little cost, one could put in place a fantastic commuter system that would enable people to live wherever they wanted and get to the centre very quickly, but this is not included in the plan. Such a service is not even mentioned for Cork and certainly not for Galway. This transport plan does not state this is our little island, that we want everywhere to be connected to everywhere else and that we will adopt a strategic approach to do it over 23 years. All of these things are achievable in that timeframe, but the plan is not in place to do so. There is a litany of bits and pieces, but there is no comprehensive plan to connect all of the country.

We often talk about cities. They are interesting places for those who have to live in them. The high-end people being talked about who live in the cities are the ones who visit the wildest parts of the country at the weekend, including west Clare, Achill and so on, for recreation, including to take part in extreme sports. They do not live in Dublin for the entire week. Many of them want to get out of it, as we saw when we had the-----