Mr. Peter Walsh:

There is a brief update on the Slane bypass project in the information pack provided to the committee. The project has been submitted to An Bord Pleanála for planning approval, which was published on 6 December. The period for submissions from the public is currently due to end on 16 February. We do not really know how long An Bord Pleanála will take to decide on whether there should be an oral hearing, which I imagine there will be, when that hearing will happen and what its duration will be. We are very much in the hands of An Bord Pleanála in that regard. We are fully committed to the project. We are very happy that it included urban realm elements.

Part of the problem for An Bord Pleanála last time around was it was hard to see what was going to happen to the village once the traffic was out of it. A lot more definition has been brought to that. There is still some doubt as to where the funding for the urban realm works will come from because under the Roads Act, on the day a new national road opens, the old road ceases to be a national road. For that reason, the NRA and TII do not have a remit to fund the works there. There is a political desire to see works of this nature included in the scope of the project. Certainly, from our perspective, we would be very happy to extend our remit to take that on because it feels half done not to do so.

On where we stand for funding for the project, we do not have sight of funding beyond this year's allocation. In 2018, we had an indication of what the funding would be from 2021-25 and from 2025-30. Provided the review of the NDP maintains the €4 billion earmarked for capital projects in the period 2026-30, we would see it comfortably fitting within the programme of works.