Mr. Peter Walsh:

We are given an indication of what the funding is likely to be. This helps and we can certainly plan a lot better with it. We have a fairly large portfolio of projects and we can move stuff around in order to meet the total. What we are asking for, and what we would like to have, is the ability to move money across a number of years. If we knew what the overall five-year envelope might be, if it was not appropriate to spend it this year, it could move into another year. The multi-annual nature of it in that way would be more helpful. It would give the industry confidence that the projects in development would come through in due course. We have a minor works programme of safety improvements, which might be 3 km long projects throughout the country on the national road network. These are largely driven by safety concerns, either accident clusters or defined hazards. Since these projects are of relatively short duration, they are more flexible. What we have found in recent years is that we cannot bring them out because there has not been sufficient funding.