Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy would probably agree that the project will probably be of benefit to many of his constituents when it has been completed. I make that point because the Government is building new road infrastructure and upgrading existing roads. No doubt the Deputy was at the opening of the Listowel bypass last month, another major piece of new infrastructure in the Deputy's constituency. The Government has earmarked €5.1 billion for capital spending on new national roads projects from 2021 to 2030 under the national development plan, NDP. As part of this, the we foresee an Exchequer allocation of €2.9 billion for the protection and renewal of existing roads over that period.

In 2024, €411 million in Exchequer capital funding was provided for national roads, for protection, renewal and new roads through TII. This money will be disbursed by TII to the local authorities. The full list of projects funded was announced in February of this year and there has been no reduction of the overall capital funding available for national roads in 2024 since those allocations were announced. However, that does not mean the budget is not under pressure. There are pressures. Some new roads programmes are facing pressure in 2024. There are a number of reasons for this, including faster delivery. We are getting capital projects done more quickly. That is a good thing. We are also seeing inflation in the cost of building materials and land acquisition costs increasing. In the past, when we had significant underspend of capital streams due to projects not being done on time, we could move things around. However, this year, our national capital spend is ahead of target, so the little pots of money that could be reallocated at the end of the year are not as available now as they were in the past.

As well as building and renewing roads, we are investing in public transport systems and we are doing so on scale. The Deputy spoke about the challenge of cycling long distances in County Kerry. He is absolutely right, but we are funding significant additional public transport programmes in his constituency. The number of Local Link journeys increased from 160,000 in 2019 to 370,000 at the end of 2023. On the Deputy's home turf, the Bus Éireann service from Kenmare to Killarney via Kilgarvan used to be three times a day. It has gone up to 12 times a day now.

We are putting investment into major road infrastructure. We are making investment in the renewal of existing roads around the country. We are also providing much-needed additional services for the Deputy's constituents, who are demonstrating their hunger for those new services. The Minister and the Government have met their needs.

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