Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

From the perspective of the Minister's constituency and mine, as well as north County Dublin, this critical route must be built because, as the Minister is aware, a major proposal has been made for a new port at Bremore. It will be critical for the orbital route to be present to link together the transport links to remove all that traffic from Dublin city. Moreover, wherever the hospital services are to be located in the north east, unless connections are put in place between Drogheda and Navan, Navan and elsewhere and so on, it will be very difficult to sell a new hospital in Drogheda or wherever it may be. While this project is in the programme for Government, is it not the case that the Green Party opposes it? It is holding back on it and the commitment in the programme for Government is solely that by the end of the Government's term, if it runs to full length, it will have in place the design. No funding will be put into this route and, therefore, were the port to be built, it would not have the requisite roads to move the traffic outwards.

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