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

On the Macroom-Ballyvouney bypass, €280 million is not a small investment. It is a huge, significant investment. We have to make sure we get the best return from that. In Ballyvourney and the town of Macroom, we have to work on the public realm and get as much traffic as possible out of the centre of town and create what has already happened in other towns in west Cork such as Clonakilty, Skibbereen, Bandon or Bantry where real life has been brought back to their centres and they are vibrant towns. That town, more than anything, deserves to rise and get away from the gridlock it has suffered for the past 20 or 30 years. Talking to Cork County Council last year, it appraised the need for such public realm works. It is about taking out a lot of traffic and parking and creating a good pedestrian space, to my mind.

The budget for that would not come from the national roads budget plan; it is more local. The county council has to allocate a lot of its budgets within its own resources provided by central funding. Those decisions are very much country council oriented, working with our Department. Having spent €280 million on the bypass, we now need to spend on the public realm measures that would see the full benefit.

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