Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will be in Galway on Monday morning and will have the great privilege of officially opening the Moycullen bypass. It is a project I was in involved in initiating when I was Minister for transport. At the time, we thought it might be possible for the ring road and Moycullen bypass to be built at the same time, so I understand the frustration people must feel that one part is done and the bigger part is not. We know the backstory to this. Planning permission was granted by An Bord Pleanála. It was struck down by the High Court. The application is now before An Bord Pleanála again.

As regards delays, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and I met the chairman and chief planner of An Bord Pleanála in the past week or two and asked them what they needed to ensure decisions on major public infrastructure projects are made more quickly, not only on this project, but on projects such as BusConnects, the DART extension that is important to my constituency and MetroLink. We are doing what they asked for. They now have a full complement of 15 board members and more than 300 staff and they will be able to take on more staff. From next week, the new planning and environment division of the High Court will sit for the first time. That means that if an application goes to judicial review, the case can be heard and decided on more quickly than was the case in the past.

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