David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Minister of State being here and what he has said but with all due respect to him, he is not the line Minister. He is doing his very best and I appreciate his support very strongly. However, this is not a new project as was outlined in the script that the Minister of State was given by the Department this evening. This project has been on the go for almost ten years. As recently as last February, we were told it was going to go ahead. We are told that there will be billions of extra funding in the Exchequer. The council is looking for €1.4 million to allow this to go to An Bord Pleanála where it might sit for six or 12 months or who knows how long. I do not know why we cannot find €1.4 million to allow this to happen. It does not make any sense. The €100,000 that was made available was already committed and spent. In effect, no work can be carried out on this project for the rest of this year and we have no indication when we might see this project start up again. The whole community of Mallow, north Cork and parts of Kerry is absolutely frustrated by this decision. Funding constraints my ass. Sorry, excuse me. There is plenty of money there so why the heck is this happening? I am not getting cross with the Minister of State but I feel strongly about this and believe that people in Mallow and north Cork deserve better. We are spending a lot of money on projects all over the country, and rightly so, but this particular project has been on the go for over ten years. In fact, it was spoken of well before then. When the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, was Minister for Finance, he gave it the go-ahead. It is in the NDP. A lot of work has been done by officials in TII and the county council. A huge amount of work has been done by committed people and it is all for nothing. There is no vision. On top of that, we are being told about active travel and so on. That is all built into it. The whole issue about the climate action plan is built into this. We will take heavy trucks and traffic out of the town and we will reduce pollution. We will put in cycleways and footpaths, which the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, tells us he wants. Without any rhyme or reason or excuse, this has been pulled at the last minute. It is not good enough. I want to say to the Minister, Deputy Ryan, if he is at home tucked up in bed listening to this debate, to change this, to make that small amount of money available and to allow this project to continue.

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