I wish to highlight several infrastructural projects in County Kerry that require attention and funding. The last time I spoke during Leaders' Questions, I referred to the need for a new Killarney outer bypass which would start in Farranfore and finish up in Lissyviggeen. On that occasion I pointed out the various junctions where there is mayhem and slaughter on a regular basis, including the junction on the Lewis Road, which is the road coming up out of the town and which accesses the existing N22 bypass. There are accidents there on a daily basis, including one involving a vehicle of ours some weeks ago. Kerry County Council is progressing plans to do something with that junction, but I am asking the Government to ensure it is done. In particular, I am asking the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Brendan Griffin, who is from Kerry, to put his shoulder to the wheel to ensure money is forthcoming to deal with this junction as soon as possible.

I also wish to highlight the problems with Listry Bridge, which was built some 200 years ago and now is reduced to one lane of traffic. It is located on the R563 Road from Killarney to Dingle, a heavily trafficked road with cars, buses and lorries passing through in high volumes. All of that traffic is stalled at the bridge because of the one-way flow. The Minister of State, Deputy Griffin, has to go over that bridge whenever he goes home.

Leaders' Questions is not the time to put a specific question to a particular Minister or Minister of State.

I am asking the Minister, Deputy Bruton, to take the question to the Minister of State. The latter was critical of my father at different times for money he took down to Kerry and for money he did not take down to Kerry. The ball is now in the Minister of State's court and I am asking him to provide funding for the bridge he travels over himself every day. I ask, too, that he ensures funding is provided to deal with the bends on the N72 at Gortahanboy, with 1.2 km of road there to be realigned. Also on the N72, will the Minister of State ensure funding is provided in the coming months for widening and realignment work on the Ballinadeega Bridge? The Behy Bridge to the west of Glenbeigh on the N71 is another bridge that was built 200 years ago and, like Listry Bridge, can accommodate only one lane of traffic. That is not satisfactory on the Ring of Kerry Road.

I am not sure whether the Deputy has set out a shopping list or a bucket list.

I congratulate Deputy Danny Healy-Rae on his excellent grasp of what someone described as "retail politics". My answers will be more in the wholesale area, telling him what we can do on a national level to ameliorate the types of problems he listed. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, because of the progress we have made in advancing the economic recovery and as we find ourselves in a position to balance the books for 2018, has announced a 73% increase in funding for capital programmes over the next four years. That will allow for a significant increase in capital expenditure in the coming years. We effectively had a lost decade where many badly needed investments could not be made, including in roads, bridges and other infrastructural projects as well as in health, education and housing. We are now in a position to make those investments, but their selection will not be made on the basis of the political hue of a particular Minister or Minister of State. It will be done on the basis of each programme being evaluated in a fair and reasonable way, in comparison with similar cases throughout the country. That is the approach that must be taken in prioritising expenditure which, fortunately, will be much increased in the years ahead. We will have to weigh up all our various obligations in making decisions.

Deputy Eamon Ryan alerted us yesterday to the obligations in respect of climate change, which also must inform the selections we make in respect of capital. I believe I can say that we are looking at a period when there will be increased resources for many of the causes that the Deputy put forward. I cannot make commitments to the individual projects, meritorious and all as they may be, and I am sure the Deputy can understand that.

The Minister said that the Government will have money to spend but my concern is that it will be spent in Dublin.

Yes.

The Minister, Deputy Ross, signalled he was spending €135 million on a footpath in Dublin. I want Ministers to go beyond the Red Cow Roundabout and travel to Kerry to see where slaughter has been occurring at junctions due to them being inadequate. Buses and lorries have been held up and lives are being placed in danger because of inadequate junctions and roads that cannot cope with the serious increase in the volume of traffic. I will make my request again. Money is needed for the junction at the top of the Listry Road and for the junction at the top of the Lewis Road. Money is also needed for works to be carried out on Listry Bridge to make it a bridge as it is not a bridge, as such, at present. I ask for funding for the 1.2 km realignment at Gortahanboy on the N72. I also ask for funding for Ballinakilla Bridge to the west of Glenbeigh on the Ring of Kerry road, and I make no apologies for doing so. I ask the Minister to make sure that the Minister of the State, Deputy Brendan Griffin, is made aware of my request. I am putting pressure on him now because he was putting pressure on us when the ball was in our court. It is his turn now. Let him prove what he can do in terms of what he can bring down to Kerry. He will be measured on that.

Thank you, Deputy. I call the Minister to conclude on this matter.

We will all be looking to the Minister of State, Deputy Brendan Griffin, in respect of our hopes for sports capital grants.

Never mind sport-----

That is an area for which he has responsibility. We will look forward to him showing his prowess there, and I have no doubt that he will. The assurance I can give the Deputy is that, in the context of the national planning framework that has been published, it is the intention of the Government that half of all the population growth that would occur will be outside of the major cities. The major cities outside of Dublin will be growing at twice the rate of Dublin. There is a very clear commitment that the infrastructural spines in which we will invest in the coming ten years will be to support much more rapid growth outside of Dublin than we have seen in the previous years. For the first time ever, we are underpinning a national planning framework with a ten-year capital programme. We are tying our infrastructural investments to the spatial and regional strategies. That is the crucial decision that has been made by this Government. It was never done before and we have seen the consequences of not having a clear connection between a Government's capital decisions and its ambitions for spatial planning. That is fundamentally changing on this occasion.

I hope it is but we will have to wait and see if it is.