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

It is absolutely the case that this country's infrastructure is not as good as it should be. We are a young country with an expanding population. We have only been wealthy for the past 20 or 30 years. We are well behind other European countries in terms of developing our public transport and railway systems. The metro systems in Paris and London were built over 100 years ago. We are only going to start building our metro system in the next couple of years. As a consequence of the financial crisis, there was underinvestment for several years of this decade. Things are now really kicking off in terms of transport investment.

As the Deputy is aware, earlier today the Government signed off on the new road to connect Westport and Castlebar. Over €200 million is being invested in a major road project in the west of Ireland.

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