Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That really does not answer the question at all. We are currently spending €483 million per annum. By the Minister's own admission the updated figure for what we need to spend is €630 million. I do not like the air of passing the buck yet again, as if this was a matter for somebody else and the Minister was just a non-executive director for transport and really it was the local authorities' problem. We must manage this process, take responsibility for it and ensure that whether it is from the Minister's home of Enniskerry or my home of Strandhill, or whether it is Dún Laoghaire or Dunquin, local and regional roads form the very backbone of our economy. Some 94% of the road networks and around 54% of all road traffic are on local and regional roads. They are in a disastrous state. What is the Government doing about it? The Taoiseach in his manifesto, the programme for Government, said that Ireland's infrastructure lags behind other European countries. What has the Government realistically done?

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