Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On the topic of trains, the all-island rail review and the western rail corridor, we have the opportunity to do what needs to be done there. You only have to look at the map to see the absolute lack of rail services from that area up to Sligo and Donegal, and the Minister, Deputy Chambers, will know this. There is an opportunity now and there is no excuse whatsoever not to do it. Cork Airport was mentioned and Galway, and we have Knock international airport, where much needs to be done to the development zone around the airport. I do not want to get into a shopping list but to Deputy Healy-Rae I would say we have lots of LIS roads in Mayo as well. We have hundreds of them. If he ever took a trip on some of them, which are not even LIS roads but regional roads, he would see the infrastructural deficits we have.

When it was mentioned that there would be a small number of decisions on investment, while that can be a good thing, it is very important to have those investment decisions regionally balanced and not purely population driven. That is what we have been doing. The weighting in terms of population is something that has to be looked at if we are ever going to make up for the legacy of the lack of expenditure in the regions.

The SPU projected a net revenue increase of €4 billion in 2024 but the fiscal monitor states that tax receipts of €59.8 billion were collected until the end of August. That was 12.6% ahead of the same period last year. Do we expect the surplus to be much in excess of €6 billion. Is there a figure for that?