Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ministers Donohoe and Chambers, and their teams, for their time in coming to the committee. I wish the Minister for Finance, Deputy Jack Chambers, well in his position and in the throes of preparing a budget.

I will concentrate some of my questioning on capital expenditure and how it is going. I had a very disturbing conversation today with an engineer in Galway County Council on transport and roads. Effectively, there is a stop being put to funding for roads from Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, but not alone in Galway County Council. It seems as if their three-year payments plan has run out of money or there is a stall going on them. Very serious projects are left in abeyance at the moment. Do the Ministers know what is going on in terms of funding for TII? There are a number of projects for safety on roads and a number of projects to help maintain the national and regional roads where funding has stalled. The expectation is that next year funding from TII for this type of work will be down 40%. Where is this coming from? Is it because of inflationary pressures or that the budget is blown? Is there an awareness of this first of all? Does anyone have any enlightenment on that?