Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Infrastructure – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 2:00 pm on 11 June 2024.
I thank the Member for his question. We are taking all actions available to us. The Member will be acutely aware that Ministers from all Departments and parties are under significant financial pressure. Since going into the Department, I have engaged with my departmental colleagues on how we improve public services as best we can with the limited public resources available to us. We have set in place a plan for reacting to potholes. I accept that potholes are an issue on many roads, but that is not only the case in this jurisdiction: in the South, England, Scotland and Wales, there is also a potholes crisis. It all goes back to this one issue: 14 years of austerity leading to a deterioration in public services and public infrastructure. Our roads are a glaring example of that.