Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

-----months and months.

There are a couple of other points I would like to make, although I will not pose questions on them because I want to ask a final question later. The points have to do with real-time updates for Local Link services and the TFI Live app. I do not use the app even though I use public transport a great deal. I use a private website instead, particularly for the No. 360 route, which has units within the buses. The website shows me where the bus is on the road. I can pull a map up and see that the bus is passing Clarinwood, so I had better get my skates on and get up the road. In the vast majority of cases, we do not have the same information in respect of Local Link services. It is much more important with Local Link, given the lower frequency of its services. If I am in Tramore and miss the bus that is going into town, I wait 20 minutes. If I miss the Local Link bus, I must wait two hours. If I am standing at the bus stop, which is not a visible bus stop and does not have a visible timetable, I have no way of knowing whether the bus is behind me or in front of me and whether I have missed it. I want to see live updates for Local Link services. None of the young people I speak to use the TFI Live app. It was my nephew who told me he did not find it user-friendly and referred me to the private website, where I could see the bus on a map in real time. Surely that is not the most difficult thing in the world to achieve.

I wish to put a question to the Department, although the NTA will probably have a view on it as well. We have significant funding for active travel projects, but not every project is getting funding through that stream. There is a great deal of pushback from communities, which get annoyed because design stage of, for example, a footpath is done, but when the latest round of active travel funding is announced, their project is not funded. The Department issued a memorandum on grants for regional and local roads. It includes funding for the improvement of road junctions and traffic management, the provision of pathways and cycleways, etc. Is the Department being super clear in directing local authorities that, if there is no active travel funding, they have this other funding stream? My experience of local authorities is that they say they are sorry that communities did not get funding under active travel and that is the only show in town, but it is not the only show in town. The local authorities should be aware of that, as should local communities.

There is a flip side of this question for the NTA. When dealing with people’s disappointment that they cannot fund a footpath in Dunhill under the active travel scheme, which is the example sitting in my mind, does it tell people there is a plan B?