Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ms Ross’s appointment. She will be dynamic. As other members said, her qualifications are excellent and wide-ranging.

The economy is doing well. For the first time in many decades, there is significant investment in public transport. It is important that the public transport companies will be changing. Competition is good. I welcome it because it gives choice to consumers and puts competitive pressures on State companies. This is good because the taxpayers’ interest ultimately becomes the primary one. The CIÉ companies must have the capacity to meet the problems with our expanding population and economy, as well as the transport issues relating to Dublin. The DART expansion, MetroLink and BusConnects will be transformational over the next seven years.

I live in a wonderful place called Drogheda. We look forward to the DART being connected to our town. It will make a big transformation. One DART will be able to carry all of the passengers who currently travel over this route over a 24-hour period. Obviously, the town will grow then. The key to developing our economy is by developing the nubs around the city which can reverse the flow of people travelling into Dublin.

BusConnects should be an opportunity for investment by private and public companies to provide a much better transport infrastructure.

We are at the crossroads and we have to make the right decisions. The way in which Ms Ross has answered our questions gives us confidence that we can interact with the company. Deputy Troy suggested that we visit Busáras. It is a fine building from an architectural perspective and it was built for its time. It might be important that the committee visit CIÉ’s headquarters to look at issues there. One of the keys issues for me is that of Connolly Station. I would like to get to know more about it and how will CIÉ deal with the pressures of commuters getting through the city.