I welcome our colleagues from BIPA, as a member of BIPA.

It's a long way to Tipperary. I spoke to the Minister the other evening and he told me he was progressing the bypass for Tipperary town and would love to come. I ask him on the floor of the Dáil to tar suas go dtí Tiobraid Árainn, come to Tipperary and meet the different groups there to get a better understanding of how the town is choked and business and ordinary living are difficult with trucks going through the town constantly. I appeal to him to come down and meet with the public representatives, the social groups and the task force that is doing so much work. We had two setbacks last week. The town needs a bypass to thrive and to be able to live again.

I say to the Deputy what I said to him the other day. I look forward to going down to Tipperary town, a town I know well and one that needs a bypass. This is a complicated and controversial issue. Many Deputies have concerns about what roads we need to advance quickest. I have said publicly and in this House on many occasions our bypasses are the critical next investment we need to make. The likes of Tipperary town have 30% vacancy on the main street. Beautiful 19th-century market towns should be the centre of town centre first and of new urban regeneration.

It is not just Tipperary town, and we could go around the country to Virginia, County Cavan, where I was last month, Carrick-on-Shannon or Stranorlar and Ballybofey in Donegal.

What about Tralee?

What about south Tipperary?

I have been to every single council. What they were saying, and I agree, is that we need to protect our market towns and invest in them by taking out the through traffic. I will commit to making sure that happens in Tipperary as fast as anywhere else.