Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I thank Deputy Wall very much for raising this issue. The N7-M7 corridor is, of course, a critical part of Ireland’s national road and motorway network. I will get to some of the challenges, but there has been significant investment in recent decades, most recently the completion of a major upgrade to the motorway between Naas and Newbridge in 2021, which also included a bypass for Sallins. The Deputy is also right that since 2019, traffic levels on the M50 have grown by at least 11%, which equates to about an extra 50,000 trips per day. We are seeing the impact of that congestion on our road and motorway network. The Deputy was also right to highlight the fact there are real-life impacts from this. He gave the very harrowing reality of a cancer patient stuck in traffic trying to get to a crucial hospital appointment. I can think of the impact for people trying to get to an from childcare providers and meet school collection times. That is stress, as well as, of course, the environmental impact of being stuck in congestion and the impact that can have on air quality. We are very much aware of the congestion. I am aware of the regular accidents on the route and the safety issues as well. We intend, through our national development plan, to invest a huge amount in transport via upgrades to the road network but also to address the points Deputy Wall made on making public transport work more effectively for more people who wish to use it, once it works for them.

The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, will shortly outline the sectoral investment plan, which is basically the outworking of the new national development plan funding in terms of the advancement of projects. I will ask the Minister to take on board the comments Deputy Wall has made here today and the constructive suggestion he has made in relation to TII and what more it might be able to do.

The Deputy has rather cleverly and appropriately linked this to the debate and discussion on the development of policy with regard to remote working. As he will remember, we gave a commitment that there would be full public consultation in relation to the policy on remote working. A lot of good work has been done in this area. I am informed that there are now more than 400 connected hubs. Indeed, I opened a remote working hub in my own hometown very recently. The roll-out of our national broadband plan, which was opposed by many but which has worked and been delivered on time and on budget, has made a real difference in giving people that crucial infrastructure to work remotely. Only on Tuesday of this week, my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, launched a public consultation as part of a legislative review of the right to request remote working. I inquired as to how that review was going the other day and was told that over 2,000 people had already made submissions. That is quite incredible. Roughly 1,600 of those 2,000 responses came from workers while around 400 came from employers. I encourage the Deputy and everybody else to make their views known. We will consider what legislative steps to take, what to review and what amendments to make to legislation on the back of that public consultation.

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