Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I said in my reply, the priority when it comes to access to the north west, and Donegal in particular, is the A5. People living in Donegal will know why that is a priority. To put it in context, the National Roads Authority's budget peaked at €1.75 billion back in 2007 and fell to €371 million this year. From peak to trough, the cut in the NRA budget has been somewhere in the region of 70% or 80% which is enormous, but that was done for a reason. It was done to protect front-line services such as health services, education where there are more teachers than there were when the Deputy's party left office, and in the Garda where we did not reduce the number of gardaí as his party had planned. Even though the roads and road developments have suffered for it, it was done for a reason.

The NRA allocation to Donegal this year, for example, was just over €9 million - €9.4 million to be exact - and that has gone into the improvement and the maintenance of the existing national road network in the county. A €45 million project is five times the cost of that and that is type of context in which we are operating. I will be making a very strong pitch for an increase in the roads budget in the next capital plan but until I know the details of that I cannot make any decisions.

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