Ms Anne Graham:

! refer to Senator Grace O'Sullivan's questions about rail freight. Unfortunately, we do not have a role in rail freight policy. Our focus is primarily on public transport services and the use of the rail infrastructure for that. Irish Rail and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport will answer the Senator's questions in that area.

Regarding use of the existing rail infrastructure, including the closed rail infrastructure - and this would apply across the State - it is expensive to maintain and keep open. People need to use them to offset the costs associated with not only running the passenger service, but also keeping the infrastructure safe and appropriate for use. A number of years ago, the number of people using the Rosslare-Waterford rail line was not sufficient to keep it open for rail passenger services, so it was closed at that time. We identified two years ago in our rail review some other rail corridors had low usage but operated at a high cost but there are no proposals at this stage to close any of them. We believe that in some cases it is more efficient and effective to provide a bus service rather than a rail service. The former is more flexible and can provide a frequent service for a much lower cost than for rail services.

We are moving towards low-emission fleet purchases in partnership with Bus Éireann. It has been set out in the national development plan that no diesel-only buses can be purchased after July 2019, so we will be required then to move in that direction, but we were doing so. The issue we had in recent years was that our funding was constrained. To reduce the age of the fleet and to reduce other emissions, we decided to purchase as many diesel vehicles as we could with our available funding, rather than invest in a lower-emission fleet, for which a premium must be paid. The cost for a lower-emission diesel fleet or diesel hybrid fleet is about 25% more per vehicle. One can pay an even higher premium for a fully electric or similar type of fleet. This is something to take into consideration as we move towards reductions in our carbon emissions. In moving towards a fully electric fleet, infrastructure must be put in place as well for charging of the vehicles. We have commenced this process. We hope to commence procurement of a low-emission diesel hybrid fleet this year. Both Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann are proposing to trial a number of buses, and Mr. Hernan will probably refer to this. We are moving towards a lower-emission fleet as quickly as we can and as quickly as our funding allows us.

I refer to Deputy Canney's questions. Rail fleet is a matter for the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and Irish Rail. We are moving towards a low-emission fleet.

We believe the Local Link offices are properly resourced. Procurement is a requirement of our procurement laws and directives. It is just the Local Link management service that is procured. We will try to assist where we can to ensure the workload related to this is minimised as much as possible.

We have worked with Galway City Council and Galway County Council to put together a Galway transport strategy, which now needs to be implemented. Funding is set aside in the national development plan for Galway BusConnects. As soon as we have moved forward with BusConnects in Dublin, our next priority will be BusConnects in Galway and to commence that implementation with the local authorities on the ground. This will include looking at improving both bus services and park-and-ride and seeing whether we can put in rail commuter services.