Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

With the size of the population and proximity to Waterford city, it should probably be considered as part of the metropolitan area for the transport strategy. I will get parochial for a moment and talk about the N11 in Wicklow. I know that there is a proposal for express buses on that road. I suggest that the express bus can work well if it operates from departure point to destination point rather than pulling in at a number of stops along the way. It is important that one states that there is an Arklow bus, a Wicklow bus or whatever it is. One needs to be able to match time of journeys in a car, it needs to be comfortable and it needs to be high frequency. I know that being stuck in traffic is not pleasant. If one is going to provide a service, it needs to match the car option to work.

This question is for both TII and the NTA. When the N11 upgrade was being proposed, I understand that TII could not consider the rail network improvement and how that might improve the functionality of the N11, because improvements to the rail service were not included in the NTA strategy.

Going forward, do we need greater interaction and co-operation between both agencies so that we can consider every transport option as we try to get connectivity between our cities and through our cities as well?