Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We will have to change things on the railway. It will have to be more like airlines so when people book in advance they get a cheaper fare. There is a sense in Ireland that one should just be able to rock up to the station at the last minute and get a decent train fare. One cannot run a modern service like this. We are moving towards cheaper intercity fares if people book in advance and much higher fares when people rock up at the last minute and think they are entitled to hop on a train which is probably full already. It will be a culture shift for people and it will not be popular but it is definitely the right way to go in my view.

With regard to PPPs if we are to draw up a new national transport plan we will have to re-examine all of the PPPs and re-cost them and see what we can go for and what we cannot. We will also have to re-examine the business cases. We must bear in mind when projects such as the metro north and metro west were drawn up the business cases were based on the idea the economy would grow forever. I know this project well because I was on Fingal County Council and my Dáil constituency includes part of Swords. There were supposed to be 80,000 people in Swords today based on metro north's original business plan. Perhaps a metro solution is not the right one and light rail would be better.