Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not live too far from a railway and would love to board a train daily when I come up to the Dáil, but every time I look at doing so there is a problem with the schedule or something. That is my fault because Dáil sitting days can be a bit haphazard in the context of times. However, there is a lot of variance in the fares at different times. As long as the fares remain so high, they will be seen as prohibitive and will discourage people from taking the train. Unfortunately, until the pricing model comes down, the car will remain king, which is not what we need.

The Limerick-Shannon metropolitan area transport study is under way. This is extremely interesting. It is a very detailed, dynamic study about how transport will change in the decades ahead in the mid-west. Something that Irish Rail is really embracing, a suggestion I made about three years ago, is a park-and-rail facility. Two possibilities are being examined in this regard, one in the vicinity of Cratloe and the other just over the border in Limerick near Thomond Park. Without getting into all the detail, is it realistic to envisage that small villages and suburban centres, including Cratloe and Thomond Park, will have short platforms and large car parks so that someone can arrive in the morning by car, board a train, get from point A to B and return in the evening? I am referring here to a park-and-rail system. We already have park and ride and we have the Luas car park at the Red Cow roundabout in that regard. Would a short-platform-large-car-park model be realistic for Cratloe, Thomond Park and many other locations around Ireland?