Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

The Minister does have a certain role in this regard in the sense that it is the Minister's role to set policy, allocate budgets and oversee corporate governance. In this regard, the decision is not to spend additional moneys on this road for the time being because the money is not available to complete the project. Therefore, it does not make sense to spend further millions just to bring it from one stage of planning to the next.

I have changed the policy of the previous Government which was to spend hundreds of millions of euro planning and designing projects without knowing whether it could afford to build them. I am only proceeding with planning and design where we know that we can afford to build the project, and that is not the case at present. However, it is also my policy position that we should not stop planning for the future. Rosslare is a very large port with great potential. It makes sense that at some point in the future, and it may be the distant future, Rosslare should be connected by a high quality road to the motorway network, which is not the case at present. The road is adequate at present for the port that is there. I visited the port in recent months to see for myself. However, if Rosslare Port were to be expanded as a major port on the east coast in the future, it would require a better road connection. That is why it is important to plan for the future in this regard.

The route selection report, to which the Deputy referred, is available on Wexford County Council's website. I believe the Deputy is mischaracterising it to the extent that what it argues is that Rosslare could be used as a port in the future to access the east coast of Ireland as an alternative to Dublin Port, thus allowing heavy vehicles to avoid the congestion that already exists in the UK midlands, it is not that the road would be built so that people could avoid that. It recognises the fact that there is a good deal of congestion in the UK midlands and it might make sense to develop another port on the east coast of Ireland so that heavy goods vehicles could come that way rather than having to go through the middle of England.

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