Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is great to be back in the Dáil Chamber and great to see the chairs-designate before us today. Like others who have already spoken, I wholeheartedly thank them but, more important, we thank the workforce of CIÉ, Bus Éireann, Irish Rail and Dublin Bus for everything they have been doing in the past 14 months in terms of getting people from A to B safely. I wish the witnesses well as they begin their renewed terms as chairs of their various entities.

I wish to launch straight into some questions. I had a very interesting chat a few weeks ago with Deputy Stephen Matthews of the Green Party, who is on the committee and is joining us here today. We were chatting about rail transportation in general. When I did economics in college, there was a curve that suggested that the higher a price went, the more usage dropped off, and that is certainly the case with rail travel. I did some pricing this morning. If I had travelled from Ennis to Dublin Heuston on the train today, it would have cost me €58 return. Bear in mind that if I had taken a booking for two adults and two children, which is a right of passage for so many Irish families taking the train to Dublin Zoo and back on the same day, we would be talking extortionate money. That is probably one of the huge barriers that still exists in terms of attracting people to take the train and to travel to different parts of Ireland.

Is the funding model relating to the ticketing system sustainable in the long term? Has Iarnród Éireann looked at what its counterparts elsewhere in Europe have done in driving down cost and making it more attractive for people to use the train and leave the car at home?