Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I take the Minister's point that the potential future growth in traffic on the M50 cannot be resolved in isolation, and it of course has to be part of a co-ordinated plan. However, I am not convinced the Minister or his Department are taking seriously the potential for the M50 to reach a threshold beyond which problems are created. From an historical point of view, we all look at the legacy of the past in regard to not getting rid of the barriers at a much earlier stage, yet growth came much quicker that we expected because of the boom in the economy. I get the sense around many of the Departments that there is almost an inertia in regard to the thought that we will ever see significant levels of growth again. When growth comes, it can come quickly and in an unpredicted way. When that happens, we will see a level of increase. I would like to think there is somebody in a positive frame of mind who is planning in the hope, expectation or belief that this will happen sometime into the future. For that reason, I hope the Minister will establish a steering group across all infrastructure in the State that looks to where the potential bottlenecks might be in the event or hope that we will see a sustainable level of normalised growth again, which is a regular feature of economies in the developed world.

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