Ms Anne Graham:

Regarding looking at public transport services, I want to be clear that we are not just focusing on metropolitan areas. We are looking at service provision on a national basis, and that approach includes our cities and also our towns which do not now have a public transport system, such as Carlow, Letterkenny and Portlaoise. Those towns do not have bus services and we have ambitions to provide those services. We are also looking at the delivery of bus services in rural areas and that is what Connecting Ireland is about. The initiative is concerned with ensuring there is an appropriate level of service which allows people to make journeys at different times during the day and to access their local and regional centres, including from places like Spiddal. We are undertaking that assessment and we will be engaging publicly in regard to those proposals later this year. Our ambition is to ensure that we have greater coverage of bus services especially to serve our rural and urban populations.

A multimodal approach and ensuring good connections from bike to rail and from bike to bus is part of that ambition. We must ensure we have an integrated system, including providing bike parking at rail and bus hubs. We will be up for ensuring that investment is put into such improvements, in addition to providing investment for the type of infrastructure Senator Pauline O'Reilly spoke about in regard to real-time information and the provision of bus shelters. We know there is an under-provision of such elements across rural Ireland.

Another point made by the Senator concerned the local authorities and the roll-out. It is important we understand that local authorities are the roads authorities. In respect of the provision of bus infrastructure and improved cycling infrastructure, it is the local authorities which will be delivering those projects across the country. We have taken on a role with BusConnects in the Dublin region because we are in a statutory position to do so. We have those powers in Dublin, but we do not have those powers outside of the greater Dublin area. That is the reason we are in a position to take on more of the planning role and to lead the planning aspect for BusConnects in Dublin. We do work closely with our local authority partners to deliver the same level of service across the regional cities and our towns and villages.