Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will address that last issue first because it is an example of what I have been talking about in terms of what we will do with our road network and what we will invest in. On the example of the N25, there may have been an original plan to look at the whole section from Youghal to Midleton as a dual carriageway all of the way and so on. The key and critical bottlenecks and pinch points are in Castlemartyr and Killeagh. There are short bypass options on the road network that would address the particular problems in those two places. I had a meeting with TII on it because it is an interesting example of what we need to do strategically.

In Castlemartyr there are difficulties because the town is on the side the bypass would be done. It is boggy and flood-prone land so it would have to be a sophisticated solution that would not be cheap. That is the sort of project we need to look at. Bypasses should be a priority. It is the same with the village of Killeagh, which has a similar configuration and a similar problem with traffic running through it. We should invest in bypasses in these places rather than making a major investment in that entire section of the national road.

It is the same with the R624 from Cobh to Glounthaune. The Deputy is right it is quite an exposed road because it is almost across the causeway along the seafront and it has an old bridge. Again, this project will not be easy because an upgrade programme to protect the road from erosion or to protect the bridge is not insignificant expenditure. Even to do a basic upgrade of the road would not be insignificant in cost.

I keep coming back to the same simple and clear message that our priority in our roads programme should be on safety, protecting the assets we have, and that where there is particular inferiority on our national or regional road network, we invest there rather than necessarily in large major new motorways or other interurban projects. We have a limited budget and it is best spent on those regional and more local site-specific investments. That is what I would hope will come out of our end-of-year review.