Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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I will come back to some of the points raised by the Deputy. I am not familiar with the exact nature of Turkish construction sector. I will say there is a general theme across the European Union about the need for simplification, balancing regulation and removing complexity, which is hamstringing many European economies. There are reforms happening with European procurement. We are developing in parallel a new national procurement strategy, which the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, is working intensively on. There has been a lot of public engagement on that, reflecting some of the concerns out there about the complexity of how the tender process operates. That is likely to conclude over the coming months and will help.

I know there is a reference in the programme for Government to the means test. The Minister and I will be working on it. Any consideration of that will have to fit within whatever envelope is available.

A lot of the measures in the programme for Government will have to be sequenced over a period of years to manage the broader fiscal position we are in and which we will agree as a Government. However, that is a matter for the budget process.

In terms of the transport provision, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has had engagements on the national development plan and wants to ensure a lot of the roads projects advance more generally. It will be for him then to work with Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, and others on roads such as the Limerick northern distributor road, which the Deputy referenced. That is about him managing within the envelope that we made available in the review of the national development plan. We want to build momentum into transport infrastructure again. We know the regional benefits of the road infrastructure we built in the past and the opportunities that exist around public transport investment and in many of the projects are now emerging from the planning process. We have a real opportunity to deliver many of them, which will help our broader decarbonisation agenda but also improve public transport for citizens throughout the country. That will feature in terms of the national development plan.