Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will revert to the N7 and M8 for a moment and mention the Newlands Cross flyover. When that project was announced, I thought it would cause chaos. I was not long elected at the time. A commitment was given on day one that six lanes of traffic would be kept open, except at night-time when that would be reduced to one or two lanes. I acknowledge that work was difficult to do during busy daytime hours when six lanes were kept open. That was impressive.

Moving a little bit further south to the Naas bypass, I am one of those who has been around long enough to remember sitting in a car in Naas for an hour and a half while travelling in either direction. When the bypass was built I was struck by the two-lane carriageway to funnel traffic to Dublin from four cities, namely, Kilkenny, Waterford, Cork and Limerick. From day one, the road became a bottleneck and it was then retrofitted. I suffered as a result of that retrofit. I remarked to somebody earlier that I spent three hours and 50 minutes travelling to the Houses one day. I arrived here at 1.50 p.m. after leaving my office in Portlaoise at approximately 10 o'clock. The road is now much better but from day one it was clear there was going to be a problem. Within a matter of weeks of its opening, traffic was congested. It was better than going through Naas but it was still a problem. How much did the additional lane cost in the retrofit?