Over the weekend, the chief executive of the IDA and others commented about the infrastructure deficit. What is the Government doing to try and tackle this, in particular pertaining to road projects? A significant number of national road projects, some contained within the national development plan, NDP, are not being replaced because of funding. What is being done to deal with that, particularly by the Department under the auspices of the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan?

We had a report on capital spending at Cabinet today. The amount of money the Government invested in public infrastructure is 30% higher than it was this time last year. The spend in the first six months of this year is 30% higher than the first six months of last year which shows we are ramping up investment in transport, schools, hospitals, broadband and all the key things we need to make our country work better and to create capacity. When it comes to new roads, there is a roads budget of €250 million a year. It was not possible to fund all the projects we would like to have funded in the envelope for this year. Discussions are ongoing between the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Eamon Ryan, to see if we could provide funding to progress some more projects next year. We appreciate that some are stalled and that is causing much difficulty around the country.