Mr. Michael Nolan:

Let me put it in context. As I said in my opening statement, only a few of these schemes will be upgraded in the next ten years. We are doing forward planning and we will go through a pre-appraisal process with the Department of Transport, Tourism and Spot on those schemes to see if they fit into the national planning framework and whether they will be productive under the NDP. At present we have bottlenecks, one is between Naas and Newbridge, where we are widening the motorway to three lanes in each direction. Anyone who knows that route will know that four lanes of traffic were merging into two lanes and that does not add up. We have numerous serious accidents on the N7 because of that and similarly on the N4. As I said earlier, there is a safety consideration in these bottlenecks, there is queuing on the N4, N11 and we are working in tandem with the NTA on a range of solutions. It is not just road widening or road improvement or tidying up junctions such as that at Kilmacanogue. We are improving the flow by dealing with the bottleneck caused by the constraint in the system. When we have three lanes going into two lanes going into three lanes, it makes sense to move to three lanes. Ultimately it is about safety and then efficiency.