Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Murphy and thank him for appearing before the committee. As a Kerryman, I agree in the main with what Deputy Griffin had to say about the effectiveness of the service in our county. I have a particular bugbear, which I raised recently in the Seanad, but without any great satisfaction. Let me recount this little anecdote, to which I invite Mr. Murphy to respond. A friend of mine got the train from Heuston Station to Casement Station in Tralee and wanted to continue his journey to Listowel, a distance of about 18 miles. The train and bus stations share a common yard. He found, having come off the train, that the bus had left for Listowel about five minutes earlier. The next bus would come in several hours time so he got a taxi to Listowel, which cost him more than the train fare from Dublin. He subsequently contacted Bus Éireann to complain but he was told that Bus Éireann does not run a connecting service. Is there any way that the bus and train service could be tailored to the needs of those who use both forms of transport? It is not good for business for Bus Éireann if customers off the train must take a taxi when a better timetable would enable people to go from train to bus, which one would expect to be the norm?