Mr. Pat Maher:

Deputy Troy is right that rush hour and peak time on the M50 have spread to six hours, three hours in the morning and three in the evening. People are leaving earlier and going home later. I agree that people are being robbed of their time. Many studies have shown that ten minutes in traffic reduces social interaction by ten minutes and it is highly costly in terms of people's time and productivity. This means people are already paying on the M50, but with their time and with productivity.

There was a question about resistance to availing of funding, despite low interest rates. With Government approval, over the past four or five years we have progressed a lot of infrastructural projects with very low-interest loans through public private partnership processes. There was a stimulus package of four schemes in 2017 and 2018, including the New Ross bypass and in Gorey and Enniscorthy, where we availed of private sector funding at fairly low interest rates at a time when there was no other avenue for raising funds.