Michael Kitt (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister to the House and I welcome the Bill. The Minister is correct in talking about the bottlenecks in the economy and his efforts to tackle them. He continued to say that we do not just have financial costs but also cost associated with lost time and opportunities. Although I live in rural Ireland and used to know little about bottlenecks even travelling to Dublin in the past, we welcome the recent changes.

Senator Dardis has often spoken about his travels through Loughrea. We needed to wait for more than 40 years for a bypass, which, thankfully, was opened last November. While that bypass should have been completed years ago, there were many reasons for the delay, including many objections. We are glad it is open now. In recent years the roads programme has suffered increasingly from objections, which have been spurious to say the least. People often blame wildlife for delays, as was alleged to be the case with the bats in Ardrahan in south Galway. I do not refer to these cases, as I have great respect for wildlife. I refer to new roads and motorways that went ahead without consultation or discussion with the farming community. That issue has improved greatly in recent times and the Minister's emphasis on local authority members being consulted is very important.

I am surprised that Senator Bannon referred to the railways. One of the best announcements made last year was the one about the western rail corridor.