In February 2021, I raised the issue of an upgrade for the R624 from the N25 to Cobh. As I tabled a number of parliamentary questions but did not get the response I was looking for, I contacted Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII. It came back with information on what would classify the road for an upgrade. It stated the function of the road must include access to towns and cities, major ports and airports and population and tourist regions. The R624 ticks all those boxes. As the Tánaiste is aware, the problem is that funding for regional roads comes from Cork County Council.

Belvelly Bridge is a bottleneck and more than €100 million of funding would be needed to upgrade the road. Under section 10 of the Roads Act 1993, the Minister has the power to classify a road as a national or secondary road. Is it possible to use that power and have Government funding provided? As the Tánaiste is well aware, this is a disaster waiting to happen in Cobh.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. I am familiar with the area and met representatives of Cobh chamber of commerce last year in respect of this. This is a key objective. In terms of the reclassification of the road as a national route, I am not clear that it is - excuse the pun - the route to go but I will check it.

A ministerial order can be made under section 10.

What we need to do is to find a way to allocate funding to upgrade this road because the current situation will not be tenable over the next decade. We have to get some route, some way, to try to get this road upgraded.