Mr. Frank Allen:

I understand. It can be an annoyance, and we should do whatever is possible to get people out of the car and into the train for the journey to Dublin rather than putting in place obstacles to that. I did not know that at some stations on that line there are parking charges while at others there are none.

Regarding shortening the journey time from Dublin to Belfast, I do not think we will ever have a high-speed link between the two cities, but we do need to shorten the journey time, and a number of measures are being taken in this regard. I return to the point of ensuring that any delayed maintenance of the fixed infrastructure is recovered. Furthermore, coming closer to Dublin, because the northern line and the DART service share a track, we need to improve the regulation of those services and move to a ten-minute frequency on the DART, which would be in the best interests of the passengers. They would not have to know what the schedule is. They would just know that the DART comes every ten minutes. Doing this, particularly in the off-peak period, will allow much better regulation of trains coming in from Belfast. Frequently, when I am on that line - I do use it - the delays are often in the last section of the journey, as one comes into Dublin, rather than further north. I do not think the issue arises as much further north. We have plans in this regard and we hope to move ahead with them in 2018. They are part of the discussions at present with trade union representatives to move to that ten-minute frequency. If we move to a ten-minute frequency, ensure better regulation close to the city, reduce delays there and then recover any delayed maintenance on the line overall, journey times will be shortened. This is a priority for us because our passenger numbers on that line are very good and are growing and we want to continue to provide an excellent service on it.