North west roads funding
Deputy Troy argued the north west road network needs more investment and asked for the project to progress to the next stage. The Taoiseach said not every road can be funded at once, but the region’s priority projects would continue to be advanced during the year.
A Programme for Government: Our Shared Future contains a commitment to continue to invest in new road infrastructure to ensure that all parts of Ireland are connected. This is critically important from a regional development perspective. The Taoiseach will know the work both of us did in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment in the context of preparing the regional enterprise plans for the north west and the west. Key to this was ensuring that part of Ireland was connected.
Last week, the funding for road projects was announced. Only €200,000 was made available in respect of the N4 road project, when €2.9 million was sought. This means that, for a second time, the N4 road project is going to be suspended. This will result in landowners and homeowners being left in limbo for the second time in a decade. The Taoiseach intervened last year to try to get additional money for this project.
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We welcomed that intervention. The then Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, intervened as well.
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I ask both of them to intervene again to ensure this project is allowed to progress to the next stage.
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I thank the Deputy for raising this question. I agree that the road does need to be upgraded. We have approximately €500 million annually for national roads, with €250 million going to maintain and restore those we have and €250 million to invest in new projects. It is not always possible to fund every project every year. It never was and never will be, unfortunately. For the north west, priority is being given to the Carrick-on-Shannon bypass, as well as closing out the Westport to Castlebar road, the Foxford bypass and a few other projects.
We have agreed that during the course of the year, if one project is slowed down or gets stuck at a hurdle, we can reallocate funding from projects that got funding this year to those that did not. That is certainly a matter that is on my agenda.