Mr. Peter Walsh:

There was a hiatus in progressing projects with the financial crisis. It took a while. Building on Recovery 2016-2021 was announced in 2015. There was the possibility of getting some projects going. That was not one of them and we did not get to try it again for some time.

It is difficult to say what the impact of the climate action plan is. One of the requirements is a reduction in the number of trips on the network. How can that be accommodated when what we are doing with projects is relieving pent-up demand? A significant number of the projects TII brings forward generate more trips. There is currently congestion. If we provide additional capacity, there will be more trips. The need to take a multimodal approach to try to have more of the trips taken by active travel where these are within the region of a particular project is something we are attempting to incorporate into the projects. The Senator is right to that extent. There is more work - multimodal work, if you like - to the extent where towns and villages have been bypassed. There is a lot more effort and scope. The projects have been expanded to include a focus on what will be done with the bypassed town as part of the scope. There is more work. The Senator is right, but-----