Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I do not like delay. Time costs money and, therefore, it is better to do things quickly. There has been a strategic shift, however. We have a programme for Government, which is allocating 2:1 in favour of public transport versus roads and 10% of the budget to active travel. I would argue the case for that is because the public transport has been underinvested in.

I will go back to what the Deputy said at the very start about the need for the likes of the Sligo rail line. We just issued that rail order on the Cork metropolitan project, which was the first rail order in ten years. It is a real problem that we have not invested in public transport at all really at the commensurate scale. I would argue and justify that because public transport needs to catch up.

It is not that we do not spend on roads. The Carrick-on-Shannon project, the Scramoge to Ballaghaderreen road and the Adare bypass are not inexpensive, nor is the Macroom bypass we just opened. They are all significant projects, but we need public transport because that has been underinvested in for decades.