Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Some of the stuff on school transport has been said and answered. I get that it falls within the Department. Even when we have moved from 50% to 100% capacity and buses have been taken off, we have received calls from people who thought they would get concessionary travel and but are not getting it, or half of them are getting it. It is just a continuation of the general disaster. The Taoiseach said earlier that climate change needs to be taken into account. It is not beyond the Government to find a solution to school transport. I will not give the list of infrastructure projects in order that I can press release for it.

With regard to the planning issue, when representatives of Transport Infrastructure Ireland and others were before the committee, they pointed out issues that relate to major infrastructure projects and the difficulties they encounter. I accept that the Attorney General review is ongoing and that the legislation will not fall in the Minister's Department. What is the interaction between the Department and that review process? I will throw into the mix what the Minister said when he spoke about the national development plan. I was wondering whether it was almost a magic algorithm. It was almost a question of survival of the fittest from a planning point of view. To take a tiny piece of it, the Minister spoke earlier about the ten-year project for roads. We have €1 billion for the first five years and then the second tranche is €5.1 billion. The business end is at tail end of the decade, but the problem is that is also the business end from the point of view of carbon budgets, etc. There are inbuilt difficulties. I ask the Minister to talk about the interaction between his Department, the Attorney General review process and the legislation that will eventually come through the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.