The N24 project for Tipperary town is vital. The link from Limerick Junction to Cahir is vital. It is at a fairly advanced stage of design by Arup consultants. Shockingly, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, has only provided one third of the funding to Tipperary County Council this year to continue final and detailed design. The Tipperary task force and revitalisation plan and many groups such as Jobs4Tipp and March4Tipp are aghast at this. Tipperary town is smothered with traffic and people cannot live, breathe or work. Councillor Annemarie Ryan has been in touch with me and many others. They need the funding this year to continue the vital conclusive work to finish the final design and final route and move it onto the next stage. The road blockage at present by TII and the lack of funding is either the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, playing games because he does not want major projects or whatever it is. We need the €3 million funding and not €1 million as we have got. It will not complete the design at this stage and it is a very serious body blow to the project.

I thank Deputy McGrath. There is roughly €500 million a year in the national roads budget. About half goes to maintaining and strengthening existing roads and about half goes to new projects. It is never the case that we can fully fund every project that we want in any one year. There has been an allocation made to the N24. We have decided that if other road projects run behind schedule or behind budget during the course of the year, we might be able to reallocate money from those projects to other projects such as the N24 but it is too soon to make that call.