Mr. Peter Walsh:

The priority list that I just went through determines which schemes have a priority in terms of getting allocations. We allocate the funds required to meet the commitments that each of those projects will have in 2022. As things stand, we have quite a number of projects at construction, so they are at first priority in terms of ensuring that all the bills arising out of them are met. Whatever is left after that is what we allocate in accordance with those priorities of connections to ports, Town Centre First and so on.

It is then a matter of how much we have. It could be a case that a particular project is very large and the bills that are likely to arise in the short term in order to do ground investigations or topographical or environmental surveys could be very expensive and we cannot afford it that year. However, as we understand the funding profile from the Department, it improves dramatically in the year 2026. Therefore, those projects will be progressed at that time.