Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not trying to be argumentative but to defend the Minister, Deputy Ryan, in that regard, he is entitled to do so.

Investment in roads, including regional roads is crucial. The facts bear this out. At the start of this year, for regional and local roads, the allocation was €626 million. That compares to €597 million in 2022. We need to make sure that road infrastructure across the country is kept up as regards quality of the roads. The new investment through our national development plan includes many roads such as the Portlaoise southern relief road, the Sallins bypass, the Sligo western distributor road - I could go on - the Tralee northern relief road, and the Shannon Bridge crossing and Killaloe bypass, which I saw a few weeks ago. A lot of good and significant work is being done at the moment because of the investment the Government is making in regional development - and no less so in County Kerry - under the urban regeneration development fund, under which Kerry County Council has been very successful in securing funding for major upgrade works in Tralee and Killarney, to name but two projects. I continue to support the local authority in the work it is doing. We have also ensured that as of July, local authorities, including Kerry County Council, were given an additional allocation for key road programmes to help them to deal with cost inflation. It is not correct to say that nothing is being done for the regions or for Kerry. I am simply stating the facts.

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