Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister.

Transport Infrastructure Ireland appeared before the transport committee yesterday. As the Minister is aware, it has seven stages when it looks to a project. The first four stages are around planning, working it all out and how it will proceed, whether it is building a road or something else. The last three stages are the actual construction and moving things forward. The first four stages take twice as long as the last three stages.

In most jurisdictions it is the other way around. The people who were here yesterday made it clear they felt there needs to be an examination of some of these processes. They put forward a plan and the plan went to the Department. It came back nine, 12, 14 months later with no changes made and yet it has taken that length of time. We certainly detected a frustration there. From the point of view of public expenditure, time is money. These delays cost and there needs to be an examination of why we have these delays in this jurisdiction, which do not exist to the same extent in other jurisdictions.