Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)

The national development plan review means very little. At best it is talking about the rail line being delivered by 2036 but there is already a landowner talking about taking a judicial review against it, which is going to blow that out of the water. This project is in reverse. We were told we were going to have the railway order in 2026 and now it is being pushed back to the end of 2027. The Government has increased the budget, I agree, but those come after this country being second from the bottom in Europe for ten years in terms of infrastructural spend. All the money the Government pushes on this does not matter unless it fixes the disaster in terms of infrastructure builds. Under this Government, we have the slowest planning, permitting, licensing, tendering and judicial review systems in the European Union.

The response to the workers who are stuck in traffic is to hike up their tolls and fuel taxes. Some people in Meath are suggesting a toll strike, refusing to pay tolls on the roads. Some are suggesting they block traffic in Dublin in the same way traffic is being blocked for them on a daily basis. I am against that disruption. Rather than going to those lengths, the Tánaiste must do his best to see if he can get a senior Minister or public servant in the room in Navan on Thursday week, to listen to the people on the crisis they are going through.

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