Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

While I have responsibility for overall policy and funding in respect of the national roads programme element of Transport 21, the implementation of individual projects is a matter for the National Roads Authority. In 2007, the NRA completed an updated feasibility study, based on an earlier 2001 study, which considered in particular the costs and benefits of what has become known as the Leinster outer orbital route.

The updated NRA study, a copy of which was forwarded to my Department in March 2007, concluded that the Leinster orbital route linking Drogheda, Navan, Trim and Naas, is strategically beneficial for the region in terms of strengthening the links between key development centres, assisting the economic development of these centres and improving the overall regional transport network.

Neither Transport 21 nor the national development plan provides any funding for such a scheme to be constructed in the period to 2015. The Government has already made it clear, under Transport 21, that priorities for the roads investment programme after the completion of the major interurban network in 2010 will be the Atlantic road corridor as well as the improvement of other key national primary routes and the targeted improvement of certain national secondary routes.

The Leinster orbital route proposal remains an important potential element of our longer-term infrastructure development. My Department will continue to liaise with the roads and planning authorities concerned to ensure that route options are preserved free of impediment for this potential project.

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