Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy for his engagement regarding road projects. He has been very vocal on that matter. Cork is the largest county in our country. If we look at the road network across Ireland, there are over 100,000 kilometres of road. That is one of the largest road networks per capita in the European Union. We have a very extensive network.

We work with our local authorities, which make submissions to us for specific road funding. Regarding the specific items the Deputy raised about Clonakilty and Allihies in west Cork, I will take the details from him and we can assess those.

The more general issue of hedge cutting has not been raised with me directly by any local authority. It is certainly an issue I am happy to look at and to see what level of funding we provide, whether there is additional funding and what the responsibilities of the local authority are. In my previous Ministry, I worked very closely with the local authorities and I intend to continue doing so going forward in this role.

In relation to road allocations for regional and rural roads, we are looking at an increase of about €92 million increase between 2024 and 2025. We will see that increase further next year. We had some funding pressures this year on the protection and renewal programme. I predict we will see a very reasonable increase in that next year.

We will be able to do more. The NDP review will help us to fund the increases in funding for protection and renewal that is needed on many roads across the country.

On EV charging points, we work closely on that with our local authorities. They bring submissions forward to us. I mentioned earlier to other members that we have published the national EV charging infrastructure plan. We have already made some announcements. We are seeing good improvements on our motorway network and regional roads. We ask our local authorities to work with us to look at where they want charging points and then to seek funding from us through the climate action fund. We work with my other Department to advance the delivery of charging points. We need to go further on it, and we will. We now see a lot of private operators and garages with fast-charging points going in. We will continue to expand that. For people to use EV cars in large areas and constituencies like the Deputy's they need to have those charging points, and they will get them. We will continue to accelerate the roll-out of that.

I know the point made about light rail. The all-Ireland rail review is an important mechanism for us to see where rail should expand to. The Deputy has a made a fair point. Should it be areas where there are starting points and new hub points where people can get to proper park-and-ride facilities? We are also doing that. The Minister of State, Deputy Canney, is working on the all-Ireland rail review and I am working on that with him. Any reasonable suggestions made to us will be put and we are quite happy to meet with the Deputy about suggestions he has within his own constituency, as I am happy to meet with any Deputy who comes forward with suggestions about how the public transport network can be improved in their own constituency.

There are specific issues with passing lanes. The Deputy mentioned the N71 in west Cork. I will take that matter up to see if any plans are afoot for that. I do not know. I do not have an answer here, but I will get an answer and come back to him.