Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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I ask the Minister of State to address the situation of Mountmellick, which has been promised a relief road for a long number of years. It still has not happened and it is very important we get it.

Mountmellick town has been neglected badly over the years in terms of infrastructure. This has been talked about and promised for about 30 years. Various options have been looked at for the route to take. There was a route from beside the mill on the Portlaoise road. That has changed and a better route has been selected. It needs to happen.

There was an announcement a couple of weeks ago of €663 million for roads projects and I was delighted to see it. When I checked down along the list, it had everywhere from Ballaghaderreen to Midleton and Youghal, but nowhere does Mountmellick figure in that long list. Limerick has four pieces of substantial infrastructure, Cork also has four and Laois has zero.

This route is badly needed to connect the Portlaoise road to the Tullamore road out of the town. This is the main route - the N80 - to Rosslare, which the Ceann Comhairle is very interested in. Vehicles coming from the west of Ireland use it, particularly HGVs. There are over 8,500 vehicles per day going through the centre of Mountmellick town, many of them HGVs. There are significant bottlenecks, particularly at the junction of Pearse Street and Sarsfield Street. It is difficult for them to get articulated trucks around it. The local hauliers association complains about it. It is also holding back the town to have HGVs and traffic trundling through every day and the middle of the town hollowed out from a business point of view. That is the simplest way I can put it. You cannot stop to do anything in the town. It is not friendly to walk around and it badly needs to be bypassed.

The feasibility study has been done, with €105,000 spent on it. The county council has done its job, it has done the assessments and studies and the preferred route is there. There are benefits to this. In the previous Government, there may have been a bit of an ideological thing about not putting in a bypass, but this would shorten journeys in distance and time. The relief road would shorten the journey by nearly 60% because you are cutting across country and not having to go into the town and wiggle in and out through streets. It would be a far shorter journey.

Like all new roads, it will have cycle lanes, and I fully support that. You cannot put cycle lanes on the existing streets of the town. That is just a fact of life. It is too dangerous. We need to get people using cycle lanes and bicycles.

It is an important project. Mountmellick is a substantial town with a large population. It is lacking in industry and infrastructure. This would benefit Mountmellick as well as travellers and drivers, particularly HGVs. We need to get this moving because there is now much more freight going to the port of Rosslare, particularly with Brexit. The number of HGVs going through Mountmellick has increased, so this is important. The port has been upgraded and new infrastructure has been put in. We need to put in the roads to feed into that. This road is part of that.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. The Minister for Transport has asked me to take it on his behalf. The Minister has responsibility for overall policy and Exchequer funding in respect of the national roads programme. Once funding arrangements have been put in place with Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, under the Road Acts and in line with the national development plan, NDP, the operation and management of individual national roads is a matter for TII in conjunction with the local authorities concerned, in this case Laois County Council. TII ultimately delivers the national roads programme in line with Project Ireland 2040, the national planning framework and, most importantly, the NDP.

The Government has earmarked €5.1 billion for capital spending on new national road projects from 2021 to 2030. That is all under the NDP. This funding will enable improved regional accessibility across the country and compact growth, which are key national strategic outcomes. The funding will provide for the development of numerous national road projects, including the completion of projects that are already at construction stage or close to construction stage, as well as the development of a number of other projects.

Since the greater portion of this funding will only become available in the second half of the decade, there is a constraint on the funding available for new projects this year. However, approximately €502 million of Exchequer capital funds have been provided for national roads through TII to local authorities so far this year.

Regarding the Mountmellick relief road, Laois County Council has completed a preliminary appraisal of bypass options. An allocation contribution was provided to Laois County Council in 2020 to carry out a strategic assessment report. However, a proposed bypass of Mountmellick is not included among the projects identified for development during the period of the national development plan. Therefore, advancement of the proposed scheme cannot be accommodated in the national roads programme at present. However, a review of the NDP is being undertaken and the outcome of this review will inform TII on the schemes to be progressed over the coming years, pending the availability of sufficient funding.

It is not included in the NDP at the moment. That is the constraint, but the NDP is up for review. I urge the Deputy and the organisations and residents associations he is working with in Mountmellick to take this opportunity to engage.

Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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I thank the Minister of State. She mentioned the billions of euro that will be there between 2026 and 2030. The bypass did not make it into the 2025 period. We have come to the end of that now. The new funding announced a number of weeks ago did not include it either. I know some of those on the list, such as the Adare bypass, are badly needed, but there is a long list of other ones there as well. Mountmellick and Laois did not seem to figure in it at all. It needs to be considered for inclusion in the review.

The Minister of State outlined the amount of money due to be spent between now and 2030 and I welcome that. The national development plan is the opportunity and that will be signed off on by Ministers. The Minister of State knows that. It will be signed off on by the senior Minister and the rest of the Cabinet. This project is ready to go. The Minister of State mentioned that projects were being funded that had started or were almost ready to go, but this is ready to go. The studies and the groundwork have been done.

The Minister of State's party leader was down just before the election. I always like to take people at their word. Along with Deputy Aird, he gave a firm commitment - I saw it quoted publicly before the election - that this would be built under the national development plan. Will the Minister of State remind the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and her party leader, Simon Harris, of the fact? I have already said it to Deputy Aird. The Minister of State might remind the Tánaiste of the commitment. Local people really want to see that, particularly all the people who voted for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in Mountmellick.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be pleased to hear Laois did figure in funding this year. An allocation of €1.147 million has been provided to Laois County Council for national roads so far this year. That comprises €701,300 for capital protection and renewal and €445,949 for current protection and renewal.

Approximately €502 million of Exchequer capital funding has been provided to TII for national roads so far this year, and almost €1.2 million of this has been allocated for Laois County Council, which I am sure Deputy Stanley is pleased to hear. This is in line with the NDP and Government policy.

In line with this, TII has sought to allocate national road funding to local authorities in a manner which seeks to achieve the protection and renewal of existing national road networks, and the progression of major projects in or near construction. I appreciate Deputy Stanley saying this could be a shovel-ready project if it were to be in the national development plan. It is not in the NDP so the next step is to get it there, if this is what Deputy Stanley is looking for, and I will absolutely remind the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and the Tánaiste, Deputy Harris, that it is not in the NDP at present. It also looks to progress major projects at an earlier stage of development in the pipeline. A number of the new road projects included in the NDP have already been delivered. They include the N22 project, the Dunkettle interchange, the N5 Westport to Turlough route and the bypasses of Moycullen and Listowel. The programme for Government commits to increased funding for new roads as part of the NDP review and to the maintenance of existing roads.