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

I will be very frank with the Deputy. I am a former transport Minister and I have a great interest in transport and continue to keep up to date with it as much as I can. I met the Secretary General of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, only last week to talk about some of these projects. This must be one that is only being examined because it was not even on the agenda. It must be one that really is only being looked at and considered. It is good to look at these things and not just to dismiss them out of hand for ideological reasons. It is being examined, I understand, by Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, which will take into account all the benefits, all the potential downsides and come to an analysis of whether it makes sense to proceed, which will then go to Government. If I were to think about potential benefits from M11 widening, which may or may not happen, I can see two. The first is much better access for trucks to the south east, to the port in Rosslare. Perhaps it would make sense, rather than having everything coming into Dublin Port and going out on the M50 to all the hubs and distribution centres around the M50, to have more going into Rosslare and coming up from the south east. These could be hydrogen-powered trucks, green trucks. Second, an area of potential benefit for the many commuters from places such as Gorey and Wexford would be to use the widening to provide a dedicated bus lane, which would allow those buses to get to Dublin, where people work, much more quickly but that is just off the top of my head.

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