Ms Anne Graham:

I can respond to that. In terms of public transport, what we have seen is that the pattern of public transport usage has changed in recent weeks. Particularly, we have seen a much earlier peak in the morning associated with essential workers travelling earlier, and obviously also construction workers travelling. We have seen the peak between 6.30 a.m. and 7.30 a.m. whereas normal peak would be 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. We have also seen a peak at 3 p.m., which is not something one would normally witness on public transport. Usually, we have high peaks in the morning and a lower peak in the evening. That, I suppose, shows that we have many more shift pattern workers travelling on the public transport system.

In terms of what we can do, we engage closely with the public transport operators. At present, our Luas light rail service in Dublin is fully operational. There is no additional capacity available to operate Luas. We can provide additional capacity on our bus and rail systems but it is limited to an additional 20%. Then one needs to take off the 80% for social distancing.

There is no doubt there is limited space available on our public transport system with social distancing in place. However, we are encouraging more people, particularly office workers and those who can work from home, to continue to work from home to allow the available space to be used for those essential workers who cannot work from home. We are also looking to encourage the staggering of opening hours, particularly for retail coming back into operation because that would also ease and allow for the peak to be spread, both in the morning and in the late evening.

We will continue to engage with employers to encourage work from home, and where one must make a trip, if at all possible to make those trips locally and walk or cycle where possible to take the pressure off our public transport system.