Taking the long road – Minister backs party’s commitments

With a General Election expected to be called “shortly after” the Finance bill accompanying Budget 2025 is passed, The Anglo-Celt quizzed Deputy Leader of Fianna Fáil and current Minister for Finance Jack Chambers about his party’s record in government on issues that affect this constituency.

Speaking after TDs Brendan Smith, Niamh Smyth and Senator Robbie Gallagher were selected to represent the party in Cavan-Monaghan at a convention held at Cootehill’s Errigal Hotel last week, Minister Chambers defended Fianna Fáil’s record on investment over the past four and a half years. He claimed Budget 2025 was in particular targeted towards easing the burden on workers, the vast majority of who travel to their respective place of employment by road.

How then, the Celt asked, that a week after the Budget was announced the government could justify increasing the rate for petrol and diesel from €56 to €63.50 - and on all other fuels from May 1, 2025.

“We’ve set a wider trajectory on the Carbon Tax,” Minister Chambers began, a decision first heralded back in 2020. “We did cut excise when prices rose significantly, and it’s in that context, we’re constantly reviewing the interaction of the taxes we apply and the global energy position. We’ve had quite good consistency with prices at the pump over the last number of months, and that reflected the decisions the government made.”

The decision though is being “kept under review”, Minister Chambers acknowledges, before being reminded that people living in his constituency are impacted more by such outcomes given the lack of alternative transport options available.

“You have to look at the Budget in the round,” suggests Minister Chambers, “the other supports given, in terms of cost of living. Changes to our tax position in terms of income taxes and our wider supports around costs of business. It’s looking at the Budget in the round is what we tried to set out.”

How confident then is the government of delivering other commitments such as those promised under Project Ireland 2040? Announced in mid-2018, it outlined planned expenditure on capital projects totalling more than €165 billion over a near two decade period.

Included is the N3 Virginia Bypass, a 13km scheme extending from the end of the existing N3 dual carriageway on the Cavan/Meath border at Derver to Lisgrey north of Virginia Town.

As of September last the mainline corridor had been refined. The junction, side road and active travel corridors were also whittled down. Yet earliest indications are that work will not start until closer to 2030.

Meanwhile, in the other part of the constituency, design work on the N2 Ardee to Castleblayney Road Scheme has been suspended since March 2023, and the much vaunted East-West Link connecting Sligo to Dundalk is reduced to a safety intervention on the R188 at Rathkenny.

“Fianna Fáil is really focused on ensuring that road infrastructure, and that wider regional infrastructure, happens. We will set out further plans in the context of our manifesto on what we want to achieve in terms of building our road infrastructure,” said the minister.

The Celt asks if this is at odds with one of their current government partners, the Green Party, who vow investment in sustainable transport as a cost effective way to lower congestion, tackle climate change, and improve the economy.

Minister Chambers contends the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

“They both go hand in hand. I think there is a road safety component to certain road infrastructure projects,” retorted Minister Chambers, who as Junior Transport chief brought forward new laws under which speed limits would be lowered to 80kmh on national secondary roads, 60kmh on local and rural roads, and 30kmh in town centres and housing estates.

He continued: “To unlock enterprise and regional growth you need road infrastructure. But I also support decarbonising the vehicles that use our road network, and I think that’s the context that’s missed in the often polarised debate that happens.”

The minister supports the continued switch from conventional vehicles to EV, despite latest figures from the Central Statistics Office showing that only 12,765 EVs were licensed in Ireland during the first six months of this year, a decline of nearly 25% compared with the same period in 2023.

The target outlined in the Government’s Climate Action Plan is to have 845,000 electric vehicles on Irish roads by 2030, and Minister Chambers told the Celt: “We have to make sure rural Ireland and our regions get the uplift from road infrastructure that other parts of Ireland benefit from. That includes border counties like Cavan and Monaghan, and connecting the North-West as well, and ensuring the TEN-T (Trans-European Transport Network) and the A5 (Western Transport Corridor Hub) connects into a road network on both sides of Donegal, Monaghan and onto Cavan. That it actually provides a regional network that’s safer, unlocks regional investment, and that is carrying vehicles that are greener and more energy efficient.”

The Celt closes by asking Minister Chambers what this government, or the next, intends to do with the €13bn in public money the Exchequer has been forced to collect from Apple following a ruling in the European Court of Justice after it was found the tech-giant benefited from illegal tax breaks between 2003 to 2014.

He says the government is being “careful” in its approach, setting out firstly the “structures” which will underpin how expenditure will be decided. This includes four main pillars - in transport and infrastructure, housing, energy, and finally water.

“That’s going to be used to ensure it unlocks further economic development, and they’ll be allocated along those priority lines. So we want to make sure it drives affordability in housing, that it builds progress around transport infrastructure, and that our water infrastructure unlocks further growth for business and housing. Our energy transition is very important for further energy infrastructure and upgrading our grid,” says the minister before being reminded the 138km North-South Interconnector linking networks of Ireland and Northern Ireland through Cavan, Monaghan and Meath remains a sore point of contention round these parts.

His colleagues, Deputies Smith, Smyth and Gallagher have all shared the outright opposition of communities locally to the proposal to overground the transmission cables.

The minister replies: “It’s about a wider energy system. If we’re going to embrace the renewables that we have, in parts of Ireland, across our island, there will be energy infras and further modernisation of our energy grid that will make a difference for communities. Ensuring we have cheaper, greener energy is our long-term goal.”