Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy was right to say some of the capital funding both from the regional enterprise development fund, REDF, and the Border fund was unspent last year. We set up a Border fund exactly for that reason. My predecessor, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, felt the Border area was not getting its fair share of funding and was able to produce evidence to prove that. Much of the funding was not spent because of Covid-related delays when construction was paused. Things just did not happen. The Deputy will appreciate when construction is stopped one cannot simply turn it back on again. We intend to spent that money. The short answer to the Deputy’s question is "Yes". We can certainly give consideration to diverting that to those areas but what we always need are projects that have come through planning and all the rest of it.