Forty billion quid - that is a lot of quid. Expressed in euros, that comes to €51 billion. Expressed as pints, that comes to 17,391,304,000. Side by side those pint glasses would go from Dublin to Moscow, and there would still be 1,500,000 million pints left.
This is real money - £36,500 for every taxpayer in the State. The Government makes no mention of an individual opt-out scheme, where citizens can just take the £36,500 if they promise to use only the old, existing infrastructure until 2006.
But who would be so churlish? Last month's ESRI Medium- Term Review was great, outlining how much richer our lives and bank balances will be five years from now.
But while that report seems now like that daydream you had about winning the lottery, the Government's latest plan makes you feel like a contestant on a game show where no one goes home empty-handed.
There really is something for everyone. You work for Intel? You get your own railway station. Can't afford a house? You get one of the 35,500 homes being built under the £6 billion social housing budget.
Don't think you'll qualify for one? Never mind, with the upgraded railways you'll be able to buy a house a bit further away from the city, and zip in to work on the train.
Sick of traffic jams? There will be new ringroads, bridges, maybe even tunnels. Tired of driving on narrow, potholed, country roads? Check out the new motorways and national roads.
Feeling excluded from society? Get ready for some great training programmes that will land you a well-paid job; and don't worry, there will be subsidised childcare while you work.
Irritated about planning delays? That part of our life will soon be over. Concerned people in Northern Ireland are being left behind? The Taoiseach says this really is a national plan - look at the North-South digital corridor, and the helping hand the State will extend northwards in tourism, energy, transport, education, agriculture, health and the environment.
But before the grinning game show comperes and the frenzied audience carry you away: what was all that vague stuff deep in the report about "public-private partnerships" and who might run the new roads and bridges? Could it be that if you possess an automobile, you will pay dearly for using it, at toll booth after toll booth?
When you take the Luas or one of the new buses, will your fare be heavily subsidised, as in every other European capital? Or would that be a political bridge too far?
You must banish such thoughts immediately, and you will be helped to do so. For the plan includes a provision for the Government to "devise and implement a communications strategy to raise public awareness of the economic and social benefits" of the plan itself.
Such a communications strategy could, of course, be expensive. But, thankfully, such a campaign - unlike those in referendums - would not be subject to the McKenna judgment. So the Government can use taxpayers' money to persuade taxpayers their money is being well spent.