I propose to take Questions Nos. 12 to 28, inclusive, together.

The Cabinet committee on infrastructure last met on 3 November and will meet again early in the new year. The Cabinet committee works to drive infrastructure delivery and the implementation of the revised national development plan. As Members know, last week, we brought to Government the essence of that plan. The reform of the delivery of critical, growth-enhancing infrastructure is a key commitment in the programme for Government. Last week marked a major milestone on this agenda with the publication of the accelerating infrastructure report and action plan.

This plan sets out 30 high-impact and time-bound reforms to speed and scale up delivery of homes, roads, public transport, wastewater plants and energy infrastructure. Actions include legislative reforms to balance individual rights and public good, simplify regulation and consenting systems, cut administrative burden and red tape and build public acceptance and a delivery culture. The reforms align with broader housing, climate and competitiveness goals. These will be achieved by streamlining approvals to allow concurrent processing, introducing statutory timelines for major project decisions, rationalising delivery guidance to reduce duplication and complexity, enhancing procurement practices through clearer project pipelines, and fostering a delivery-focused culture that balances safeguards with urgency.

We are at a critical juncture. We have a strong economy and growing population, but our infrastructure delivery is too slow. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform this. The Government, private sector and communities must align behind delivery. The plan is underscored by the largest capital investment in the history of the State, with over €275 billion planned over the coming ten years.

Over recent weeks, Departments have published their ambitious sectoral investment plans for the next five years. Areas such as energy, transport and water will see a significant scale-up in funding and delivery, all of which will support us to address our infrastructure deficit and scale up housing. There will also be robust oversight of the Government’s performance in achieving these actions with regular reports on progress to the Cabinet committee on infrastructure. In the period ahead, the Cabinet committee will, therefore, oversee both the investments and reforms required to ensure that infrastructure is delivered as efficiently and quickly as possible.

There are 12 Deputies present. They will have 30 seconds each, which means there will be six minutes for questions and six minutes for a response. That is as fair as I can be.

The recently published national development plan update sets out an ambitious plan for key infrastructure for the years ahead. Many of the capital works are due to get under way by 2030 and others thereafter. Having a pipeline of projects ready is vital because there is so much background work involved with them. I am particularly focused on the ones after 2030. We have seen how the N22 Macroom bypass took many years to advance through the earlier stages, such as the background works, planning and design and so on. The next phase of that road is the piece between Macroom and Ballincollig. It needs to continue in the background and get through the various background stages so that we have a pipeline of projects ready to roll as soon as possible.

We have all seen a huge amount of flood damage and the danger of nature. While a huge amount of work has been done by local authorities and emergency services, this brings to light the need to deal expeditiously with CFRAM protections that are necessary throughout Louth. With regard to the south part of the Dundalk and Blackrock project, the promise is quarter 2 of 2027 for planning application submission. There have been promises and we have been waiting years.

Is that CFRAM?

It is CFRAM. There are five particular projects throughout Louth, in Drogheda, Carlingford, Greenore, Baltray and Ardee. The lack of wastewater capacity is also causing issues.

We need to double-track the rail line from Galway city to Athenry. The passing loop at Oranmore is under construction now. Ceannt Station is moving to be a station with five platforms. Huge investment has gone in but we must continue it because we are going to wait years for the Galway city outer bypass and the reality is that rail is the lever we can pull. We can build a double track from Athenry to Galway city which would greatly improve the quality of life for all commuters in east Galway.

We need updated wind and solar farm guidelines. The wind farm guidelines are in draft form since 2019 and the last full version was in 2006. There is a commitment in the programme for Government for solar farm guidelines but recent responses say they are at a very early stage of a scoping process. When will they be ready?

The new roll-out of BusConnects routes has been a disaster in my constituency. Constituents report that buses on the F spine route, which were supposed to provide a more direct route to the city centre and greater connectivity, are taking 20 to 30 minutes longer to get into town and providing fewer options for people trying to get to work or school. It is made worse by the frequent delays and cancellations seen across nearly all routes in Dublin South-West, including the S and W spines operated by Go-Ahead Ireland. Elsewhere, the NTA has been forced to change routes in Finglas and Chapelizod due to protests and people making their voices heard. Will the NTA do the same here or will people be forced to protest?

Central to a good infrastructure system is a good public transport system. I welcome the approval of BusConnects Cork by Cabinet to proceed to the planning phase. That is very welcome but we cannot wait years for improvements to the local bus service. I am sure the Taoiseach, like other public representatives in Cork, is inundated with unreliability issues relating to local bus services, such as buses not turning up, disappearing buses and inaccurate information on the travel app. It is simply not good enough and it has been going on for years. People are tired of excuses from the National Transport Authority and Bus Éireann. I ask the Taoiseach to please take this issue up and look for immediate improvements.

While we prioritise electricity, water and transport, digital connectivity must now be treated equally. It is essential for Ireland's competitiveness. Europe has fallen behind the US and China. 5G stand-alone is under 2% in the EU and 0% in Ireland, compared with 20% in the US and 80% in China. AI, ehealth and advanced manufacturing cannot run on yesterday’s networks. If we want future investment in next-generation technology, connectivity must be prioritised. Will the Cabinet committee on infrastructure evaluate 5G stand-alone as a national priority? During Ireland's EU Presidency, will the Government push for strong, pro-investment digital policy under the digital networks Act?

The Navan to Dublin rail line is not included in the national development plan review as a project that will start to be built before 2030. It has no start date for construction at all at the moment. It is up to a future government to fund the construction of a Navan to Dublin rail line. No money has been assigned or ring-fenced for that particular project, despite the fact there are 90,000 people commuting from Meath at the moment, 60,000 of whom travel by car and add to the M50 crisis. The M50 is currently grinding to a halt. If the Government wants to help fix the M50 crisis, allow people in Meath to use public transport to get to work without pushing them into cars every single day.

Ireland faces an emergency crisis in terms of infrastructure, housing, energy and water. According to the ESRI, an additional 40,000 construction workers will be needed for the housing plan and an additional 40,000 will be needed for infrastructure. That is 80,000 construction workers who are required to meet the Government’s plan. Indeed, the Dublin metro will require 8,000 construction workers. What is the Taoiseach’s plan in order to achieve this? I speak to construction workers in Australia all the time. They want to come home but they are simply totally disenfranchised and disengaged. The Government has no interest in bringing them home.

I know the Taoiseach will agree that the people in Mayo deserve to have proper road infrastructure. I want to specifically talk to him about the R312, which is the main road connecting Erris to the county town of Castlebar. I want it to be designated a regional strategic road because that is the only way it will get the funding it needs. It is a dangerous road. People have put up with it for years but it is time for it to be fixed.

Which one is that?

It is the R312. I thank the Taoiseach.

Ba mhaith liom ceist a chur ar an Taoiseach faoin flooding we saw in Clontarf yesterday. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Boxer Moran, for coming down and sorting out the dreaded sandbags, but households and businesses were very worried yesterday. I had tens of people-----

Where was that?

Clontarf. Does the Taoiseach not know I am a Clontarf man? The flood defence is critically needed. Will flood defences be included in critical infrastructure with the recent announcement last week? This needs to be fast-tracked and people and businesses need assurance.

Finally, Deputy Conor D. McGuinness.

Once again, I am raising with the Taoiseach the N25, which is the transport spine of Waterford's infrastructure and long regarded as the most dangerous national road in the State. There has been no funding for safety improvements. Routine maintenance, resurfacing and line painting are not good enough at this stage. Bus stops are being withdrawn. There was another HGV incident this morning just outside Dungarvan. We need to see serious investment in safety improvements on the N25 right from Rosslare to Cork city, but particularly in Waterford where there has been no funding for safety improvements.

Taoiseach, the floor is yours for five minutes.

I love the demarcation lines. The "Rosslare to Cork city, but particularly in Waterford" part of it. I am sorry. I get it. Do not worry.

It is just an observation. I will start with Deputy Aindrias Moynihan, who made a very good point. Hopefully, with this national development plan and the allocation of ten years, we will avoid this stop-start where we get a project from A to B but C is not provided for at all. We had that over the last two decades, I suppose. I recall how the Cork-Limerick road had planning in an earlier era and then that was all shelved after the financial crash and so on. If they had kept the planning going, they would have been in a much better position now to actually start. I do accept that, and particularly on the N22. The Macroom bypass has been extremely effective but there is the problem that you go along a great road into Ballincollig if you are coming from the Kerry side but then you are suddenly into what, as the Deputy was saying to me the other day, is like a parking lot for the next 20 to 40 minutes. It is a very good point that we should encourage Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, and others to keep thinking of the next stage and to have the planning ready and preparatory work done. I will work on that particular stretch the Deputy has referenced.

Deputy Ó Murchú raised the flood damage, CFRAM and the five projects in Louth. Deputy Barry Heneghan had a similar point. In general, flood protection schemes take a long time. Some of that is due to stakeholder engagement and public engagement, and there can be objections and so on. If any projects are of such imperative, these are. We do know that when these projects happen, they are effective in protecting against flooding. Towns that had historical flooding events have stopped them because of good infrastructure being put in. These projects invite a lot of objections. We had it in Cork city and it went the whole way to the top courts. It is only now that work is under way and all of that. There was flooding in Cork city this week. It was there because of the tidal levels, but one could argue that if you had the protections in, then businesses and people would have been protected and people could have gone in and out of town. I am very conscious of that.

With regard to Deputy Dolan's question, I will come back to the Minister. It was a good point. I do no know where we are on it in terms of the national development plan but there is no question that Galway city is facing enormous congestion, including all the areas feeding into Galway city. It is a real problem. Public transport, including rail, does give us an option, but not the whole option. We have to get the ring road done. Equally, though, the rail infrastructure is critical. I will talk to the Minister for Transport, Darragh O'Brien, about that.

Deputy O'Rourke raised the issue of the updated wind farm guidelines. The Deputy is correct that they have been a long time coming and technology has changed in the intervening period. I have asked the Minister, James Browne, to accelerate the work on the guidelines. The unit in his Department is also working on planning exemptions. There is a lot of work there. The Department is also working on rural guidelines for housing and one-off housing. There is a lot of work in that Department but I accept that we do need to bring this to a conclusion. At some stage, we need some collective debate on energy. We are all dealing with individual cases of objections to solar, objections to gas generation, objections to wind onshore, and objections to wind offshore potentially. We desperately need the offshore wind. This is something we have got to progress through planning. I am hoping we can get wind farms built, certainly through 2030 to 2031. If we do not, then we are in trouble from an energy perspective. As a collective - when I say "collective", I mean the entire Oireachtas - we have to try to stand back and say that there are huge challenges. We discussed security earlier. We are very dependent on the importation of fossil fuels through the interconnectors. There are real issues here that we need to be clear-eyed about. We can then take decisions once everybody realises that there are pluses and minuses in all of this.

Deputy Paul Murphy raised BusConnects, which he said was a "disaster"-----

Some of it.

That is okay. It is a word that is not uncommon. Anyway, I have had my issues with BusConnects down through the years. There have been issues for habitual users of bus services who feel the changing of services or the reorientation of scheduling and so on has eroded what they would have had prior to it. Then we had all the issues around what were, in my view, over-the-top initial plans, which then got rolled back. This seems to have been a pattern throughout the BusConnects journey and I think lessons could be learned from that. A lot of heat built up that perhaps was not necessary in the first place because a lot of stuff that was proposed was then taken away. We will engage with the National Transport Authority, NTA, in terms of what is happening. It has made a lot of progress now on BusConnects. We need a good bus transport system.

That brings me to Deputy Séamus McGrath's point. Yes, I have heard similar reports in terms of reliability. Originally, a year and a half ago, the shortage of drivers was blamed, but we definitely need to improve reliability. There had been very good stuff happening in public transport growth and so on.

I will talk to Deputy McCormack again. The Deputy is absolutely correct that America, China and others are way ahead of us in some of this in the digital space. We need to catch up fairly quickly. I will look at the 5G stand-alone issue.

Deputy Tóibín mentioned the NDP. The Navan rail line is in the NDP review-----

It is not a Bill.

The Deputy has a great capacity. He is brilliant at it, actually. From a political agitation perspective, the Deputy has a great capacity to turn what others would see as success into defeat. For the Deputy in opposition to say that we are not releasing-----

That-----

Do not interrupt.

I have to, a Cheann Comhairle.

No, Deputy Tóibín, do not even dare.

The Deputy is trying to ask how I can-----

Deputy Tóibín will have to look for it afterwards.

I spoke to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, about this and he is very clear that the Navan line is going ahead.

There is no date for construction.

Do not even think about it.

The Government is absolutely committed to it.

On Deputy Lawless's question, there is a huge increase in apprenticeships. We are recruiting people back. We are anxious for people to come back into the country, and people are coming back into the country. The construction industry is confident enough in terms of the numbers for getting the housing done, for example, and the huge retrofit programme that is going on as well.

I will talk and engage with the Minister in respect of Deputy Conway-Walsh's query on the R312.

Regarding Deputy Heneghan's question, I have discussed that in terms of Clontarf and flood relief generally. It will be part of critical infrastructure, absolutely. I see it as critical infrastructure because it is a big threat to us. The storms are worse and they are more severe. We need to accelerate the protection of people, households and businesses in that respect.

On the N25, we need to get the bypasses along that road. That is a section of the road that definitely needs improvement.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle.

I thank the Taoiseach and Members. For future reference, if there needs to be back and forth, this is not the forum in which to pose a question.

In the review-----

We have a Dáil reform committee today at which it will be discussed.

We need a bit of entertainment and lively engagement, too.

This is not the forum, Taoiseach.