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

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. As he will be aware, Project Ireland 2040: National Development Plan 2018-2027 is currently under review. We expect to be in a position to publish the revised and updated national development plan in the summer, most likely in June or July. That will project out to 2030 in terms of the major infrastructure projects we intend to progress during that period.

It has been a long-standing objective of successive governments to connect all our cities by motorway or by high-quality road. We have made enormous progress in that regard in the last couple of decades. One thing we need to bear in mind, particularly taking into account the need for climate action, is that we need to now look at this in the round. Connecting cities can be done in two ways: by rail and by road. We need, therefore, to weigh up options in terms of closer and faster connections by rail as well as by road, and ideally both. We also need to bear in mind that when we progress these projects, it is not just about connecting the cities but also bypassing the towns along the way. If I understood him correctly, I believe the Deputy suggested that the link should be from Cahir to Limerick, and that could double as the link from Cork to Limerick. That is true, but it does nothing for Buttevant or Charleville, towns which are heavily congested and need to be bypassed and relieved of that traffic. There is also the issue of Foynes, Adare and Kilmallock, which are linked into road projects between Cork and Limerick, such as the Foynes to Limerick road which includes the Adare bypass.

All this, therefore, must be looked at in the round as we seek to review the national development plan. The programme for Government gives a clear commitment that new investment in transport will be split 2:1 in favour of public transport, with two thirds of the money going into public transport and one third going into new road developments. What is absolutely certain, however, is that there will not be enough money to do all the projects we would like, whether it is all the public transport projects in the cities or all the road projects in cities, towns and counties around Ireland. We will, therefore, need to make some choices.

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