Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. She has acknowledged that the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is away. The response I have comes from him and his Department.

The national roads programme is managed by Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, and is delivered in line with Project Ireland 2040, the national planning framework and the national development plan. Once funding arrangements have been put in place with TII, the planning, design, improvement and upgrading of individual national roads is a matter for TII, in conjunction with the local authorities concerned.

A key priority in the NDP is to maintain the quality and safety of the existing national road network. The NDP foresees an Exchequer allocation of approximately €2.9 billion for the protection and renewal of existing national roads over the ten-year period to 2030, excluding about €1 billion on public private partnerships, allocated evenly across the decade.

Furthermore, approximately €5.1 billion will be spent on new national road projects across the lifetime of the revised NDP to 2030. This funding will enable improved connectivity across the country, particularly in rural areas, as well as compact growth in town centres, which are core components of the revised NDP. This funding will allow for new national road projects which are at or close to construction stage to proceed. The greater share of the funding will become available in the latter part of the plan, with €4 billion to come on stream in the second half of the decade and €1.1 billion earmarked for the period 2021 to 2025.

Proposed national road projects that are at earlier stages of development by TII are subject to further approvals in advance of a decision to construct. When evaluating the progression of these projects and to deliver on strategic objectives, a prioritisation of expenditure between and within TII's "protection and renewal" and "new projects" categories is required, including which new projects should progress. That prioritisation is in line with the programme for Government commitment for a 2:1 split on funding for new public transport and new roads, the national investment framework for transport in Ireland, NIFTI, the national planning framework and the requirements of the climate action plan. The N11/M11 upgrade project is included in the list of projects to be progressed during the period covered by the NDP.

The N11/M11 junction 4 to junction 14 improvement scheme is included as a major project to be progressed in the NDP. The TII peer review of the emerging preferred option took place on 24 June 2021. Wicklow County Council commenced the public display of the preferred option on 30 August 2021 and this ran until 4 October 2021. The options selection report was published in December and is available on the project website.

A component of this scheme, the bus priority interim scheme, has been allocated €1.2 million in 2022 to progress the provision of a dedicated bus lane between N11/M11 junction 3 and junction 6, between Loughlinstown and Bray. The allocation is intended to progress the bus priority measures toward statutory approval. This will be the initial phase of the overall proposed improvements to the N11.

Allocations for all national road schemes, including those in the NDP, are considered on an annual basis and planning and design on the subsequent phases of the scheme will be progressed in that context.

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