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

I will look into it. I will make a broader point. I went into the mathematics earlier of how we have €35 billion and how we will spend it. There is roughly €6 billion for new roads investment in this decade. In that figure, and I believe the Chairman and other members may have been aware of this, the first half of the decade will be a much smaller allocation than the second half of the decade. That is due to the timeline of a variety of different projects such as the major public transportation projects in Cork, Limerick and Dublin requiring significant upfront investment and expenditure as the start. What we expect in this first five years is, therefore, only a small fraction of the overall roads budget compared to the second, which is approximately four point something billion in the first half and one point something billion in the first half. There will, therefore, be a very scarce allocation resource within the first five years. There will, though, be the potential for us to identify which are the projects that will be ready to hit the road - excuse the pun - as soon as that budget window increases. My direction on that, which is contained in the NDP, is that the priority should be on compact development. We, therefore, support bypasses, relief roads and Town Centre First projects as a priority, as per the national planning framework.

We also critically mentioned here several times that road safety is what they have to do. I am sorry; the first priority is maintaining the existing network because that is the first road safety measure we have to enhance. It also saves money in the long run because if we let a road go, it costs much more money to bring it back to proper standards. Within the allocations, therefore, there will be a significant amount of work that is ongoing, such as the Macroom bypass, the Westport to Castelbar road, the Dunkettle roundabout and so on. I could go on. There will be new projects that are very close to decision gate, such as the M28 or others like the Adare bypass. Then, a large number of other projects will be advanced in the planning, design and development stages with the instruction to TII to optimise for bypasses. For example, therefore, on the N26 Cahir to Limerick Junction, let us do Tipperary town first. That has been widely discussed among Deputies in the Dáil. Also, we must do all that work so that we are ready to go when the budget starts to become available for the bypasses and relief roads that I believe should be at the centre of our roads policy for the next five, ten and 20 years.