I know this matter is of great interest to the people of Cavan and Monaghan. I met with councillors from there before Christmas. At the outset, I should state that the improvement and maintenance of the regional and local road network is the statutory responsibility of the local authority, in accordance with the Roads Act. Works on these roads are funded from the council's own resources and are supplemented by State road grants. The initial selection and prioritisation of works to be funded is a matter for each local authority. Indeed, Cavan and Monaghan do a very good job. Although they have been constrained by resources, they have got the resources every year they are required. As regards the basis for allocating grants, within the budget available to the Department, grant funding is allocated on the basis of grant programmes and not on the basis of the category of road. The allocation of funding across specific roads, or across categories, is something we get submissions from local authorities about, which we assess. The main regional and local road grant programmes are targeted at specific policy objectives, including pavement sealing to protect the road surface from water damage, road strengthening based on pavement condition rating to lengthen the life of the roads - good work has been done in Monaghan, in particular, on that using new technologies - and a discretionary grant that allows for a range of activities, including pothole repairs, edge strengthening and renewal of signs, etc. These three grant programmes account for most of the grant funding and are allocated based primarily on the length of the road network in a particular local authority area. Apart from a requirement that 15% of the road strengthening grant is spent on regional roads, the allocation of funding to different categories of road is entirely a matter for decision by each local authority. Having said that, in 2025, Cavan received an allocation of €19.193 million, which was an increase of nearly €1.8 million on its 2024 allocation, and Monaghan received an allocation of €18 million, which was an increase of just short of €1.8 million on the previous year's allocation. I am awaiting the draft allocations for roads. I expect to have that in the next week. I will then go through that, taking into account working with officials, to allocate that and get it out quicker than we did last year. There was a slight delay because of the election and road allocations did not go out until around March. We intend to get them out in January of this year.
Sentiment score: 0.29
Every local authority is looking for additional funding. Last year, we provided significant additional funding, which the Deputy acknowledged. We intend to provide a further increase in funding this year. I am not being evasive; I cannot give him that figure. I need time with colleagues to be able to go through the draft allocations, which I will look at. We take into account the submissions and feedback we receive from local authorities. I have met with most, though not all, local authorities in relation to the roads programme. I could not meet all of them in the short space of time that I had. Both Cavan and Monaghan do an excellent job. I know both local authorities well and the staff therein. Monaghan, in particular, has been to the forefront of using new technologies for road repair. It has got additional funding for that and is one of the counties that has piloted that programme. I commend its chief executive, Robert Burns, and its director of services on the work they have done there. This will be in the next few weeks. I intend to get this out, if I can, in January. I will obviously share that with Deputies. We will get the allocations out to the local authorities so they can continue the good work they are doing. This will not all be fixed in one year.
Sentiment score: 0.15
We cannot just look at this in isolation. There is the NDP and the projects we are advancing for new roads and new national roads across the country. In Cavan-Monaghan, there is the trans-European transport network, TEN-T, road network, which is critically important in the north west. There have been unprecedented levels of investment. There will be a further increase. The Deputy's definition of "substantial" and mine might be different, but I do not have a figure yet. I do not have the draft report. When I do, it will be considered. We will do that. We will work with our local authorities across the country, which do a good job in this regard. The funding increases last year were significant. It has been good to see the local authorities being able to deploy those resources. More work needs to be done. Deputy Carthy would also acknowledge that this situation will not be fixed in one year. We have got to be able, on a phased basis and in a structured way, to continue increasing that funding. We are coming through, but are still in, a high-inflation environment where more money has been allocated but, in some instances, it has really just covered that inflationary amount. That has to be managed well, and it will be. In the coming weeks, we will be announcing the allocations.
Sentiment score: 0.08
Improving accessibility, reliability and affordability of public transport while ensuring the system remains well funded and responsive to passenger needs is a core priority under the programme for Government. While my Department sets the overall policy direction and funding framework for the delivery of public transport services, the NTA has the statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public transport services nationally. In this context, we secured an unprecedented allocation of €940 million for the PSO services in budget 2026. I mentioned this in my previous answer to the Deputy. That was a 43% uplift in one year alone. It has raised that base. As I mentioned earlier, we did not want to continue the practice of the previous five years of going back for continued supplementary budgets because you cannot plan properly. We need to get the PSO onto a sustainable footing. We have taken a real step forward in that regard. As the Deputy is aware, supplementary funding has become a recurring requirement and we wanted to move away from that. Accordingly, the 2026 allocation prioritised advancement of ongoing programmes and commitments in line with operational readiness and resource availability. This includes recently announced changes to the route alignments under phase 7 of BusConnects and the upcoming roll-out of new town services in, for example, Mullingar, County Westmeath, in quarter 1 of 2026. I will continue, with colleagues, to engage with the NTA as it finalises its 2026 service plan, ensuring that planning and strategic decisions are informed by operational and resource considerations. Once we receive the draft plan, the Ministers of State and I will assess that. I expect there will be new services in 2026. We have to consolidate the new services brought in during the past couple of years. We have to manage the resources properly, which we will. I do not have the service plan yet, but I expect to get it imminently. We will take the feedback we get from all colleagues, Government and Opposition, with regard to services that are needed. People are using public transport at a level they never have before, which is great, and we want to continue to support that.
Sentiment score: 0.15
We will take Dublin as an example. I am using Dublin because two Dublin Deputies have asked this question. We had 164 million passenger journeys on Dublin Bus alone last year. Those are record-breaking numbers. That has been supported by new services being rolled out and improvements to existing services, even acknowledging that there have been human resource challenges. We still have issues in some areas with reliability of services. The ghost bus phenomenon needs to be addressed because the customer needs to be central to everything our bus and rail operators do all the way across the country. It has to be about serving the paying customer because people are responding to the investment. We will not be able to do every new route that everyone wants in one particular year. We have to step that out and move it through. Deputy Currie mentioned the N8 and has asked me direct questions on that before, as have Deputy O'Gorman, the Minister, Deputy Chambers, and others. I intend to get that route in place in 2026. I am clear about that. We have to work with partners in the NTA and we have a budget to manage. We do not have infinite resources either. Let us be clear about that, too. Getting the PSO onto a sustainable footing was critical. I was not going to do what was done over the past five years, which was to depend on large supplementary budgets coming in at the end of every year to support service expansion. That is not the way to do business. That is why my two Minsters of State and I insisted that we get a significant increase into the base in the PSO. That gives us a real platform to move forward into 2027 to 2028 and beyond.
Sentiment score: 0.06
By the range and depth of the questions and contributions here, we see all of the different demands on the Department of Transport. That is good. We have advocates right the way across the House, but we have a Government that needs to deliver. We need to continue a phased and sustainable improvement in services. My predecessor in transport, the former Minister, Eamon Ryan, did a good job and we worked with him in that regard. We needed to get that funding on a sustainable footing and I was not going to continue what was done previously. It meant having to go back every single year and look for short-term moneys to plug the gap. We need to be able to plan in a sustainable way. That is how the Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, answered Deputy Whitmore earlier when she asked for a bus service to be announced. It has to be done in a planned way. We have to look at the network in its totality, all the way across the country. Deputy Dolan raised specific issues in his own constituency that we will work through. I am concerned that the Deputy said he wrote to the NTA and got no response. That is not acceptable. I ask him to bring those to us. Every Deputy deserves a response and for their input to be respected. We will make a further improvement this year in 2026. Am I going to be able to keep everybody happy with all the services they want in 2026? No, I am not. However, we are going to see a further step change in that regard, an increase and improvement. We particularly have to serve our newer communities. We cannot look at this in isolation to the NDP capital investments. We are talking about the bus network. The first two BusConnects corridors have started and there has been major investment in rail, road and our bus network as well. We have lots of good things. This period of time could be transformational. There were 343 million public transport journeys in 2024. That was throughout the full year. That will have substantially increased further in 2025. People are responding to the investment the Government is making. This is good for our climate and quality of life. We need to continue to improve it, and we will by working with people.
Sentiment score: 0.13
The Deputy is allowed to speak.
Sentiment score: 0.00
First, no one has raised the white flag. I read with real interest and, actually, amusement the Deputy's comments in that regard since he is someone who served in the Government in the past five years and his former party leader did a very good job in that area. We are reducing emissions while the economy and the population are growing. A lot of the projects we have been talking about today will help to further decarbonise our transport system. Transport is critical in that regard. I am being honest with people and changing that climate conversation to ensure that people see the benefits of the transition that is under way in this country. Really significant progress has been made across many sectors, including agriculture, transport and, in particular, energy. We are clear on the climate obligations we have. I am committed to advancing the progress we have made. However, we also have to be very honest with ourselves about where we will land at the end of the decade. I gave a view on that, which was based on projections I have, and it is important people know that. That is not to surrender anything at all. I can see where we will further accelerate our progress between now and the end of this decade and in the early 2030s. That conversation itself needs to change, and we are having an honest conversation with people and stakeholders and further advancing the good work that was done by my predecessor and the previous Government. However, we need to be honest with people too. That is where the discussions we have had even here this morning about the competing demands, and rightly so, with regard to public transport will be critical. I refer to continued electrification of our public transport network and of our car fleet. We have exceeded targets, by the way, with regard to electric vehicles. We have targeted the supports there for people through tax measures and grants. We will accelerate retrofitting of homes as well. In no way has anyone raised a white flag in that regard. Of that I can assure the Deputy.
Sentiment score: 0.29
We will get back to the point of agreement in this regard. I thank the Deputy for the question. It has been widely acknowledged that transport is and continues to be a difficult sector to decarbonise, but we are making progress. The development of the transport chapter of the climate action plan identified and set out policies intended to put the sector on a pathway to achieve an emissions reduction of 50% by 2030. Current indications, however, are that the carbon budget 1, 2021-25, target of 54 MtCO2eq has been exceeded and any overshoot will therefore be deducted from the carbon budget 2, 2026-30, target of 37 MtCO2eq. Achieving that more demanding target will be a challenge. Again, we have to be honest with people on that. With that in mind, my Department has been working very closely with the NTA over the past 12 months to deliver the CAP corrective action modelling project that the Deputy has asked about. The aims of the project are essentially to identify potential policies and measures to correct the trajectory, which we are doing; determine whether the transport sector can go beyond this in order to address the issue of unallocated savings for carbon budget 2-----
Sentiment score: 0.18
I will come back on the supplementary question with the rest of my time.
Sentiment score: 0.00
To put to bed this mistruth in relation to the ratio, the Deputy is not correct and has been peddling this mistruth. The 2:1 ratio always was and always will be a relatively rough and ready reckoner. Having said that, based on the NDP sectoral plan, the ratio is as at more than 2:1 in relation to investment in public transport versus new roads. That is a fact. The Deputy cannot dispute that. We are looking at an investment package in the NDP that is heavily weighted towards public transport. On that basis, the ratio is about 2.6:1 in favour of new public transport over new roads. That is a fact. To get back to the Deputy's question, the corrective actions modelling project is progressing very well. That will feed into the 2026 climate action plan. It will be completed in the coming months. I cannot tell the Deputy that it will be this quarter but it is well under way. I met officials yesterday evening and got a progress update on that. Where we can take corrective measures, we will, and we have a real opportunity to do that in the transport sector.
Sentiment score: 0.19