Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has name-checked the national planning framework at length today. I have looked at the national planning framework. The two top ones are compact growth, which we all agree with, and enhanced regional accessibility. It refers to all regions in the country having a high degree of access to Dublin as well as to each other. Not every route has to look east. Accessibility can involve places like Cork and Limerick, to give one example, and the Atlantic corridor from Cork to Galway, as well as access to the north west. That is the number two objective of the national planning framework. We have the Limerick Shannon Metropolitan Area Transport Strategy, LSMATS, which I hope will address rail, because it was not in the original plan, and will address issues like the northern distributor road. We got a good briefing yesterday from the Minister's officials about NIFTI. It goes maintain, optimise, improve, new. When it goes down to new, it refers to major road capacity upgrades, including upgrades from single to dual carriageways.

The N20-M20 project is currently out for public consultation. They are coming back in with route selection shortly. Does NIFTI's structure in any way prevent a motorway from coming through the TII process?