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

I had a meeting with the board of TII earlier this week. I said to it, as I will say to the Deputy, that we have a huge volume of projects. There are projects worth more than €70 billion, and that was before the inflationary period, with a €34 billion national development plan, NDP, pool and a pool where we have committed 10% funding to active travel and 20% funding to public transport. In those circumstances, to my mind the priority has to be the building of a whole range of new bypasses such as Castlemartyr in a similar road area. I could go on throughout the country, such as Listowel, Abbeyfeale, Virginia, Carrick-on-Shannon - the list is as long as your arm. I believe those projects providing bypasses to allow our towns to thrive should get priority over mainline capacity enhancement, which is the case with the road in question. Given the very limited budget we have as well as projects committed to, such as Ringaskiddy, the Dunkettle roundabout, with a limited purse I believe bypasses are the area on which we should focus the money.

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