Noel Rock (Dublin North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have a few final questions now that I finally have got the witnesses all to myself. I am fond of the 40E bus service which brings people from Finglas to the Luas. Under a freedom of information request, I got the details that in and around 5,000 passengers use it every week. There has been a little bit of chatter locally about it being discontinued and I wanted to put an end to it here. I assume that is not the case. I assume it will be continuing until the BusConnects plan is implemented, when it will be effectively superseded by the proposed 262 service. Will the NTA confirm the service will continue? One can see passenger numbers are increasing and it is a good story.

In addition, I have been campaigning for a real-time sign to be placed at Broombridge station to allow passengers know when buses are coming. It is in the spirit of BusConnects that somebody gets off a Luas to get on a bus but needs to know when the bus is coming. Sometimes the service there can be half hourly or thereabouts. If a person has just missed it, putting a bit of certainty would be useful. Will the NTA confirm if that real-time sign is coming? If so, when?

Cycling is a significant component of the plan. I do not know if it came up at the start of the meeting but since I have been here there has been no mention of it which is regrettable. The 200 km of dedicated cycle track infrastructure is one of the better elements of the plan. It is a point to which we should be giving due consideration. Perhaps we can meet separately on this to go through some of the pinch points in the cycle network.

No consultations are held locally in our area. Castleknock is the nearest one, if I am not mistaken. That is quite far to go from my area. Those who want to attend the consultations are the very people who use public transport. Getting to Castleknock on public transport for the majority of my constituents is difficult. It is perhaps a roundabout way of the NTA illustrating the deficiencies of the current network. If it is, it is quite clever. However, I do not think it is. Will the NTA look at putting one more consultation locally for my area? For people in Finglas, Santry and Beaumont, it is difficult to get to a consultation in Castleknock.

Transport police is a great idea. The Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, dedicated a special one-off to it back in September. I happened to be on an intercity service from Cork to Dublin and there was a garda for the duration of the journey. While it might be a bit unsettling, it is a good thing to see and we should see more of it. It would be useful for Dublin Bus and particularly the Luas. They should be encouraged to reach out to the Garda Commissioner about this.

Will the NTA confirm the dates on smaller consultation on the metro? Is it still the case that the design team will be transferred to other projects such as the Luas to Finglas?