Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that but I am tight for time. I will pick up on the point about Connecting Ireland that has been well made. Route 188 was introduced under Connecting Ireland and is used by 1,400 people per week. It did not exist before; 1,400 people per week use it now. I heard from Local Link yesterday. It is a matter of funding to see additional services rolled out. There was €5 million last year and €4 million was spent; there is €8 million this year. We need to go further than that.

I have a broader question. I have raised before daily traffic congestion at Kilmoon Cross and Rath roundabout. It is a road outside Ashbourne. There is a proposal to build a motorway extension. That is not being supported and the project has run aground. It seems to me there is policy incoherence. There are many statements about what we want to see, such as less new motorway infrastructure, better integrated road transport, public and active travel and more people working from home.

I am talking, however, about what happens when the rubber hits the road. When I speak to local engineers and ask where we going with the project and how we are going to address the traffic congestion daily, they say, "You tell me because you're the politician and the one in Leinster House." They say that as far as they are concerned, they have manuals to which they need to operate and those manuals tell them to do what they have just done. We are told by TII and the Government there is no funding for the project, and all the while, people sit in traffic daily.

The same is replicated throughout the country. It feeds into the frustration in Galway. I again make the case to the Minister that he should use Kilmoon Cross to Rath roundabout as a standard bearer for what he means for the future of transport policy and strategy. He should provide park-and-ride, public transport and alternatives to address the congestion there and show people what he means. As I said, when I speak to engineers, they do not know what they are supposed to do.