I was hoping my fellow Corkonian the Taoiseach might be present to answer my question. Given his remit in the area of transport, I am glad the Minister is here.

A report was published yesterday from the All-Island Research Observatory in Maynooth demonstrating that Cork's road infrastructure is massively underfunded. It is not just a question of underfunding of roads, as it also involves the town and village renewal scheme and the CLÁR and LEADER programmes, funding for which is substantially below national averages. Engineers Ireland stipulates that roads should be strengthened every 20 years but in Cork that is not likely to happen for 52 years, given the backlog and our problems.

The national roads office in Cork estimates almost €750 million is required to bring local roads up to standard. Given that the programme for Government commits to ensuring sufficient investment in the local and regional road network to maintain roads to a proper standard, deal with road and safety challenges and improve regional accessibility, what will the Government do to address the issues in Cork arising from the report I mention?

Is the Minister's chequebook out for Cork?

The key argument represented to my engineers and the Department is that investing in ongoing maintenance saves in the long run. If we let a road go and it goes below a certain standard, getting it back to standard is very expensive and difficult. There is a real case for what is called steady state investment, or investing in the steady state characteristic of our roads. Cork is the largest county by area and, I am sure, has the greatest length of road by miles, and it will be considered, like every county, in making our roads safe. That is what the investment provides for.