Ceisteanna ó na Comhaltaí Eile - Other Members’ Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-02-11 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central It will be next week. I could not agree more with the Deputy about the importance of road infrastructure. I always argue that the primary objective is road safety. When we did the motorways and so on, that contributed to the reduction of road fatalities and injuries on our roads. We have no issue there. I will talk to the Minister and ask him what his plans are for the N24. The Deputy said that a lot of money has already been spent and that approximately €9 million would get it through the statutory process over the next number of years. I will engage with the Minister on that. The human impact is key but, as the Deputy said, it is also economically important in terms of people, mobility, tourism, freight and the movement of goods and services. They are extremely important. I think the Deputy said Kilkenny County Council is the lead council and we will engage with it on this. I do not have the full programme in front of me and I am not in a position to outline the specific details of the programme of funding the Minister will announce. I also note the Deputy's praise of the officials in Tipperary County Council. He clearly has a positive and constructive relationship with them on roads and so on. These roads have to be done. Therefore, anything we can do to get them through the statutory process, we should do. Otherwise it can go on forever. At least if we get to the planning permission stage, there is a clear map ahead. Often a lot of the delays are in the design and planning permitting stages of a project. I will talk to the Minister to see what we can do about this. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-11/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-11