Mr. Garret Doocey:

The Department has been engaging with Louth County Council back to 2021 on this particular scheme, which is hugely important to the development of the town, as the Deputy stated. Phase 1 of the project was in 2021. There was engagement between the Department and Louth County Council. The county council, as the statutory roads authority and as is its prerogative, went a different route in terms of the funding of that particular element of phase 1. It is being implemented in line, as the Deputy explained, with HISCo and development levies, I believe, and private developer support as well. There was engagement again with the Department on phase 3 and there was what we call in our transport appraisal framework a "project outline document", which is a high-level scope of the project, what it proposes to do, the benefits it would bring, estimated costs, etc. It is very early stage. That was submitted to the Department. Queries went back from the Department to the council and I believe the responses to those queries are still outstanding. There has been engagement on phase 3. The Department is funding Louth County Council this year in our funding grants to continue its further analysis and support of that project. There is ongoing engagement in relation to the project.