Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

On the Narrow Water Bridge, this project will be led by the Department of the Taoiseach within the shared island initiative. The Deputy will see that there was draft funding within that. It is not within my Department's Estimate. My view is that the real potential development here, on both the Cooley Peninsula and on the Mournes on the other side, is particularly the development of cycling and walking traffic. They are two beautiful tourist areas and there is potential for development of such sustainable transport solutions. I am also concerned about the village of Omeath. If there is a large increase in traffic coming across from Warrenpoint, how would the village of Omeath manage? How would we cope if there was significant increased traffic on the peninsula itself? There is a risk around Carlingford and around the other side. Some of the tourist value could be lost if it becomes a much busier road. As I said, that more immediately is an issue the shared island initiative within the Department of the Taoiseach is managing.

With regard to the Enterprise, I was talking to Irish Rail recently. One of the issues coming out of Covid is significant changes in transport patterns. Remote working will change the extent of long-distance commuting. That may well allow Irish Rail, on a range of different services, introduce new services. The new InterCity railcar carriages we will get in, next year and the year after, will give additional capacity and that may give us the potential to introduce new services.