Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 27 June 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Rural and Community Development

Western Development Commission: Chairperson-Designate

3:00 pm

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not mean to interrupt Mr. Brannigan but I have an interesting statistic. The Athlone and Limerick lines converge in Athenry. Athenry has a population of 3,950. Some 300 people a day travel from Athenry into Galway city. The rail census November tells me that. It was taken in November so these people are not tourists. If we then consider Ballinasloe and Athlone, Athlone has 27,000 people. Fewer people travel from Athlone to Galway than from Athenry, which has 3,950 people, even though it is only a 55-minute journey. That is well within the length of journey that is considered a commuter journey in this city without a problem. When one is on a train, it is not the distance but the time that counts. Therefore, one has to ask why is one service doing better. Even though the service into Galway from Athenry is not great, at least it has twice the service Athlone has because it has two sources of trains - the Limerick service and the Athlone service. In fact, more people take the Limerick service to Galway because the times are better. Why is a population of 3,950 producing more passengers than a population of 27,000? It is the same situation with Ballinasloe. It is way behind both.

One has to say to oneself that there is something strange here and ask oneself whether it has to do with the frequency of the trains. Once one starts looking at that, building up a model, looking at best practice in other places and finding out what can be done to increase that figure in notches again and again with little investment, then one can start looking at Athenry, Tuam and Claremorris, which automatically links one in to looking at times. I have done some work on this. A good study needs to be done which would take the town populations into account, not to mention the hinterland populations. We can then start to look at the factors that get people out of cars and into trains, at how many potential passengers there are and so on.

To my knowledge, the WDC has done work on travelling to work in the region so it knows that half of Galway's working population comes from outside the city. It probably has information on how many come from the east, where there is a railway line. These are the kinds of factors we need to look at. I am convinced that there is a justification for the western rail corridor and a massive justification for improving services between Ennis and Galway, Ennis and Limerick and Athlone and Galway. Commuter rail is going to be the driver, not intercity or freight rail. Freight and intercity services are fine, but the big driver of numbers will be commuter rail. If look around the east coast, intercity is not the big driver of people getting off at Heuston, Connolly and Pearse stations, but inner commuter and outer commuter.

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