Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The existing NDP has approximately 45 different road projects. A project being in the NDP does not necessarily mean it is guaranteed to go to construction. Similarly, just because a project is not in the NDP does not mean that it will not happen. There is also flexibility within local authorities. For example, the proposed Castlemartyr bypass we are examining at present is very much led by the council, which is appropriate. The same could apply to Killeagh. Given that there will be such financing constraint and that what was in originally envisaged in the NDP involved very long sections of upgraded national roads, whose cost would run to hundreds of millions and, in many cases, billions of euro, we may have to reprioritise whereby we spend on a large number of small bypasses rather than doing one huge section of road, such as the Macroom bypass. I have nothing against the road in question, but it almost goes as far as Ballyvourney. Its cost is coming in at approximately €250 million. It is better to use our money on a series of small upgrades and bypasses so our towns and villages can be restored. Rather than listing every one of them in the NDP, the issue is to set the strategic context and the budget and then apply that across the country.

See this speech in context