Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister, Deputy Ross, seemed to seek praise for putting roads back on the capital plan that Fine Gael had removed. The M4, in my constituency, was in its planning stages before Fine Gael took it off.

Now we are being asked to praise Fine Gael for putting it back on the capital plan. It may be open in ten years. Representatives of Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, have come before the Joint Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport on a number of occasions. They have regularly said they did not get sufficient funding over the past five or six years to enable them to propose roads to be put through the planning process. For this reason, they have been unable to have roads shovel-ready when additional funding has become available. The Minister seems content with Ireland's current designation under the core and comprehensive network. I remind him that under our current designation, just 5% of TEN-T is available. This would hardly build footpaths in some towns and villages in the regions.

Regardless of Brexit, our ports and airports are key to our connectivity as an island nation. Our exporters need greater security. The Government is failing abysmally in this regard. I mention as an example what the Minister is doing regarding Dublin Airport. He wasted 18 months making the Irish Aviation Authority the competent authority to deal with noise regulation. When he came before the Joint Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport this morning, we learned - lo and behold - that the Department of the Taoiseach is now involved. I assume that Department has had to get involved because the Taoiseach does not believe or trust that the Minister can deliver Fingal County Council as the competent authority so that Dublin Airport can get a second runway before the current runway reaches full capacity.

I note that the Minister's Independent Alliance colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, has joined us in the Chamber. I remind the House that the programme for Government which the Independent Alliance helped to write, and to which the Minister and the Minister of State signed up, includes the following commitment: "In the first three months the new Government will apply to the European Union for the revision of the TEN-T CORE Network". Two years on, why has that not yet happened? I suggest that the Minister needs to forget about Stepaside Garda station and about the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017. Instead, he should concentrate on his own brief.

See this speech in context