Mr. Graham Doyle:

There is a variety of taxes and revenues associated with the transport system that are significant and they all come back into the Exchequer in terms of how it distributes money around the system, whether it is for health, social protection or, indeed, transport. There is a link between the local government fund and the expenditure on regional and local roads. We are very anxious to increase the expenditure on regional and local roads in terms of exactly what the Deputy describes. If we end up in a situation in which roads are under-maintained over a period, then the costs of correcting them become much more significant later on. We do not want to store up that problem.

In trying to answer Deputy Catherine Murphy's questions earlier on, I spoke about a significant analysis we had done that has informed our input into measures such as the capital plan, for example, whereby we quantified the underexpenditure in relation to what it cost to maintain what we call the steady state, or what it costs to maintain what we have, whatever about investing in new stuff. What it costs to maintain what we have is significant because once one builds it, one must maintain it.