Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I compliment Deputy Connolly and the Independent Group for bringing forward this important motion. Last week we sent a letter about the western rail corridor to the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Transport to urge the Government to reactivate the reopening of phases 2 and 3 of the line from Athenry north through Tuam and on to Claremorris. For the Minister of State who is here, that letter was signed by over 110 Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas across all parties. Therefore, there is political support for the reopening of the western rail corridor. I am delighted the Government has not opposed the motion.

On the corridor being part of the motion, I was concerned when the Minister said a decision on the all-Ireland rail review has been delayed due to there not being an Assembly in place in the North. I ask the Minister and the Department of Transport to do something different. A draft has been prepared of the rail review. The western rail corridor is a particular section within the south of Ireland stretching from Claremorris down to Athenry. If a decision was made to clear that line and commission the rebuilding of the bridge at Ballyglunin we would be making a start at providing the infrastructure. Usually public infrastructure takes between five and ten years to develop but here we have a ready-made project. No planning permission is required. It is a replacement of the line just as we are doing between Limerick City and Foynes Port, where work has now started. I applaud the Department and the Minister for getting on with that work. This is another project he can do now. Further, the Minister should make it categorically clear the line north from Claremorris to Sligo is protected for rail until a decision is made on extending the railway up there. If a greenway is to be put in it should be put in complementary to, rather than instead of, a rail line.

I live in Tuam in north Galway. Many people commute from east and north Galway to work in the city. Back in 2008 Noel Dempsey opened a bus lane from Lough George into Claregalway and that was phase 1 of a bus lane to bring people into the city. We have private bus operators bending over backwards to bring people into work on buses and doing a great service against the tide. We are almost in 2023 and we still have not commenced phase 2 of that bus lane. We have buses competing with cars on the same lane. People are effectively voting with their feet and taking their cars rather than the buses because then they can use the rat runs all around the place to try to get into work more quickly. We are therefore doing an injustice to ourselves by not completing that bus lane. Incredibly, there is no land required. We have done about five feasibility studies and every other kind of economic analysis of it but we have not gone and done it. It is something the NTA, along with the local authorities, needs to get done as quickly as possible.

Another bugbear I have is our planning system seems totally alienated from our transport needs. I have two examples. One is in Gort, where an application was put in for a residential project right beside Gort station.

Galway County Council was very excited about the project, yet when it came to planning permission it refused to give it. Back in the 1980s, Michael Kilgannon, a councillor, lay on the railway line to keep Woodlawn Station open. The station is still open but we had the ridiculous decision by the Planning Regulator and the Minister to direct that Galway County Council should not zone land in the area for residential development. That is an incredible decision at a time when we are trying to get people to use trains.

Yesterday evening a man who resides in north Galway rang me. His daughter goes from Craughwell down to Limerick for study. Every Sunday evening she gets on the train and she has to stand. There are at least 30 people in Craughwell trying to get onto a train that has three carriages. At this stage, her parents are contemplating bringing her down by car on a Sunday evening and collecting her on Friday evening because she works over the weekend at home. That would be easier than using the train. This is a line that RTÉ made a skit about a number of years ago because it reckoned nobody was using it. Today, it is the fastest growing line in phase 2 of the western rail corridor. We are now in a position where we are demanding more carriages to bring more people on it. If we are to change our transport mode from the car to other modes, we have to start with our youth. If we give them a good experience on the train or the bus, they will remain with it, but if we do not, their first objective when they get a job will be to save enough money to buy a car so they will have their independence. That is the mindset we have to change.

I was at the Galway county hurling final last Sunday and the traffic around the city was absolutely horrific. This was on a Sunday so there were no businesses open except the Christmas market in the square, the county final and whatever else was going on in terms of shopping. To get in and out of the city was a pure nightmare. I got from Tuam up to the outskirts of the city in about 20 minutes and it took me about an hour to get from there to Salthill. That is just not on for people visiting the city, whether on a Sunday or on any other day. There is a site at Carnmore of 135 acres. It is owned by Galway City Council and Galway County Council. I cannot for the life of me understand why they have not put a park and ride facility there and created a bus corridor into Parkmore to bring people to work rather than having them sitting in a big car park all along the roads leading into the city. I cannot believe the councils still have not done something about that. There seems to be some lack of understanding there, or maybe a lack of vision for what is needed.

The outer bypass will not happen in the next ten to 15 years, if ever. We will probably spend another €32 million doing reports. In the meantime, if we spent that money on making changes to our transport and facilitating buses and rail, we would actually do something to help the traffic situation other than creating more layers of paperwork. We are blue in the face talking about this. The bottom line is that if we do not act now, we will end up talking about this again in ten years with no changes. Galway city and county will be the loser there, as will the whole region. I thank the Minister for accepting the motion today but that is not enough. We need firm action immediately.

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