Hospital administrator Marie Meade from Glenduff near Mitchelstown in Co Cork shells out €3.20 a day for the use of a toll road that shortens her journey to Cork city by about 20 minutes, but she is happy to pay the fee because the new motorway has given her "some quality of life".
The 34-year-old, who works at the Mercy Hospital, Cork, used to spend an hour and 20 minutes on the road to the city every morning prior to the opening of the new relief road.
But even with the new road, what Mitchelstown needs is an adequate public transport service.
As it stands, if Meade were to take a bus to Cork city she would still have to drive to the bus stop. And even then, in the evening the bus leaves Cork city at 4.30pm and 6pm, which is of no benefit to her, as she finishes at 5pm.
Most week nights Meade rushes in home and attempts to get the dinner on quickly so she and her husband can have "some sort of life". She says the long commute and financial implications of paying tax and insurance on two cars, as well as the cost of petrol and parking, have all to be taken into account when planning for the future. She hopes to take a few years off work when she has children so she can put them first.
As regards the Budget, Meade insists it is high time the Government started to pay attention to communities such as Mitchelstown, which are lacking in facilities. "There is no cinema or swimming pool in Mitchelstown. If you want to go for a swim in a pool you have to go to Fermoy. This is a huge catchment area and it is seriously lacking in facilities. If you are into field sports you are sorted, but other than that there isn't much. We hope to model ourselves on Fermoy, which has all sorts of facilities in place."
Paula O'Donovan, a nurse at the Mercy Hospital who lives in Araglin, Co Cork, also takes the new Mitchelstown motorway every morning. She says the road saved her sanity - it took her a lot longer to get to work on the old road.
The mother of two has to drop her young children, Eoin and Ava, off at a childminder every morning, so time is precious. Having to pay a road toll is not ideal, but O'Donovan says it is worth the money when you are trying to get back to young children in the evenings.
Her sentiments are shared by Tony Lewis of Mitchelstown Business Association, who says the opening of the new motorway earlier this year was the source of much happiness to commuters in the town.
However, he says it is unfortunate that locals have to leave their town for work in the first place, citing job losses at Dairygold and the gradual erosion of Mitchelstown's traditional industries as a major blow to the area.
Lewis says rural Ireland has changed totally in recent years, adding that towns such as Mitchelstown are bearing the brunt of Government neglect.
"You are looking at a dismantling of the community. The infrastructure is not in place in rural towns to attract people out there to live, and the people already living there are having to go elsewhere for work. Commuting is making a difference to community life. There is less interaction in the community. We also really need to have plans in place to replace the traditional rural industry. As it stands it is being ignored."