Mr. Aidan Murphy:

I thank the Senator. Cork has experienced difficulties, including serious congestion before Covid-19. That has not allowed the provision of services and is a serious problem that needs to be addressed and is being addressed. There is a BusConnects proposal for Cork. I know from discussions with the Minister that he is anxious for BusConnects to proceed as soon and quickly as possible.

Interconnectivity is the key to what the Senator is talking about. Mr. Allen mentioned earlier, in the context of Limerick, that instead of building car parks, we should have interconnectivity of bus and train networks. That is a feature we need to explore further in the future because we have not developed that fully in a way that could assist. One needs to provide quality and certainty in public transport. If I want to be at a meeting in Dublin, I need to be sure that I can catch a train in Cahir, change at Limerick Junction and arrive on time in Dublin. If I catch an X8 bus in Cahir directly to Dublin, I need to be sure that the timings are right. In normal times, once the X8 hits the outer corridor of Dublin, it is stuck in traffic with all the cars. We have in the past requested that Transport Infrastructure Ireland allow us, for example, to use the hard shoulder at the end of the motorway so that the bus is faster than a car. Certainty will bring consumers back to public transport and connectivity will allow people to make journeys from one end of the country to the other.