Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The reply is very weak. The reality is they have been working on this for ten years. Prior to approving the Bun an Choill section, the original plan was to do the whole road. There were a lot of discussions, and ongoing discussions. I was over in the Department myself in the intervening years regarding method statements. It is not yesterday or today that this issue arose.

The second issue that should be understood is that - and this is the irony of it - if the road was built to the modern standards, with settlement pools to prevent the run-off of the road going directly into the streams, it would be much better for the ecology. That is not at issue. Everyone knows that a well-designed, modern road is way better in terms of leachate from the road into the streams than a badly-designed, traditional road that we have in Connemara.

The issue resolves around a simple matter, and that is, whether the road can be built, taking unexpected weather events into account, without some damage being caused in the actual building of the road due to the weather. It was for that reason that the Bun an Choill section to Maam Cross was allowed to go ahead. There were qualifying interests there, but they were not so severe as in the second section of the road, so that was granted. It was felt that it would become the test case to see if it could be ensured no leachate would get into the water bodies, taking into account all the kind of Connemara weather that we get - and there were dry and very wet periods during the construction of the road. Travelling the new section of road, you will see water on all sides of it. That, according to my understanding, was very successful.

Can the Minister of State be a lot more explicit, either today or by sending it to me in writing, on exactly what work has been done since September 2022 to date, and why it has been delayed so far? Who has the technical advice been sought from? When was it sought? Why was it not sought before that?

Finally, like the Wildlife (Amendment) Bill 2021, "as soon as possible" is becoming a sick joke in this House.

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