Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)

I apologise because Senator Flynn and I had to leave for vote, so I might have missed some context for what was said while we were out. I lend my support to what Deputies McCormack and Clendennen said about rural Ireland and the delays we are seeing in local housing developments. I do not want to use overly dramatic words, but I have heard from many councillors who refer to the death of rural Ireland with regard to delays up to 2029. In Kilkenny there will be delays up to 2029 before any new developments will be in place due to Uisce Éireann water supply and wastewater issues. It is obviously something particularly pertinent to development in rural places. I am not necessarily looking for a comment on that. I know the witnesses have spoken about it already, but I am adding my voice to that.

I apologise if I missed this, but this has been coming up at any discussion about road safety infrastructure. We obviously have a number of dangerous roads in Ireland where we have seen a number of awful road deaths. How is that panning out and what is the prioritisation in that space? Another Deputy spoke about the acceleration of the infrastructure task force. It is fantastic to hear that civil servants will be on that in combination with sector experts. My question is about any conflicts of interest that might come up with sector experts working in the infrastructure sector making recommendations that might overlap with their businesses and so on. Are there protocols in place for that? That is just out of interest.