Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The great thing about this committee is that approximately seven minutes is always loose, which is to the credit of the Chairman because he is very good at giving latitude. It also allows the Minister to have an exchange with us. It is always appreciated.

We had a very good briefing session with departmental officials yesterday. It is a very good idea because it short-circuits some of the stuff and answers many of the questions we may have. A colleague of mine from the time I was on Clare County Council, P.J. Kelly, has been a Fianna Fáil councillor for a long time; I think he is Ireland's longest serving councillor and is a really talented person. He once referred to our county development plan as the refusal kit because he said there were many good policies there but there also were many policies that automatically shut down or refuse development. None of us wants NIFTI to become the same over the lifetime of this Government.

Yesterday, we were briefed on the hierarchy of the options and how everything works. However, that needs to work positively. The Minister and the officials who are present need to work through that menu of options. When a road or other infrastructure is involved, of course, we first need to remediate it and bring it up to modern standards before building something new.

I get all of that requirement for value for money and meeting public needs, but please do not allow it to become the "refusal kit", as P.J. Kelly would have called it. We spoke in the Chamber some months ago about the Limerick northern distributor road, phase 1 of which is progressing fantastically down along the Clare-Limerick border area. The Chairman can attest to that. Phase 2, however, remains in a state of limbo.

I have been watching this whole debate from my office. Reference was made to a lot of rail projects, which again I am very enthusiastic about. A few months ago all of us in our constituencies went onto media, social media and the airwaves to talk about the national planning framework and all of the very positive projects that were going to happen including rail spurs out to Shannon Airport with many stops along the way in suburban Limerick, north Clare and on up to Ennis. There was a mixed review from people. Many people were as delighted and enthused as I am, while many others felt that it was pie in the sky. I do not want to put words in the Minister's mouth but earlier he touched on this. These projects must go through a lot of hoops and are often delayed by many years. That concerns me. I hope the Minister will champion moving things quickly through all of those realms so they become shovel-ready projects that are actually going to be delivered. I believe the Minister and his officials want to see this. However, I do not believe we can have a scenario where a metro north delay happens with every nice project that we now look forward to and anticipate around the country.

I happened to be in Beijing in the year it hosted the Olympic Games. That was a worst-case scenario because they brought bulldozers through parts of the old town to clear it for fancy shiny stadiums. That is not where we want to be at. Equally, we cannot have environmental lobbyists who are based in the heart of Dublin city objecting time and again to projects in Clare. I will not name this person because that would be an abuse of the committee, but it has happened time and again. It has held up key projects such as the Killaloe bypass that are now happening. There must be some entry threshold or pre-qualification for someone to object. I would not, in a month of Sundays, object to a project in the Minister's constituency, elsewhere in Dublin or in Wicklow. I would not do so because what does it matter to me? I am at the other side of the country. There are, however, people who meddle continually in what is happening in County Clare and in the mid-west. We must have some pre-qualifiers to ensure we do not see all of these projects fall off the cliff because of vexatious and interfering objections.

I have some questions, and I want to leave time for the Minister to respond. I believe the Minister will have to grasp the issue of rail ticket pricing. I have some real-time information. I have been fiddling around on my phone here on the Irish Rail app. I travelled with Irish Rail this morning and I use it as many days as I can to get to Dáil Éireann. We are a family with three children and it is a rite of passage for every Irish family have a day out at Dublin Zoo and go home again. Today it will cost a family of five €182.57 for a return train journey with Irish Rail from Limerick Station to Dublin's Heuston Station and back in the evening. By contrast, the same family of two adults and three children could today take an overnight sleeper train from Amsterdam to Vienna for €75.80, with bed and board and everything going on that train. It is wrong. It is more than double-fold a journey. As another contrast, I could mention the little holiday that my family have already booked this year. In August, we will fly from Shannon Airport to Edinburgh with Ryanair for approximately €120. It is ludicrous. I love the train and train journeys. I am a huge advocate for getting on the train and using it, as much as Deputy Matthews is. It is absolutely insane to think that one can go from Amsterdam to Munich, or from Shannon to Edinburgh, more cheaply than one can travel to Dublin by train, which is a journey of one hour and 55 minutes. It is crazy and it is deterring people from using the train. We want to see modal shifts and new attitudes, but it will not happen unless the price is right. I really want the Minister to grasp that.

My final point to the Minister is school transportation. We can talk time and again about decarbonising our economy, putting more trains on and opening new stations but the answer is to consider what happens in July and August. When the schools are closed, it is easier to get from one side of Dublin to the other or from one side of Ennis to the other. Even in Limerick city, where the Chairman is from, or in any other town in Ireland, one can get from one side to the other with relative ease because the schools are closed and there are not 1.8 million cars making school journeys in the mornings. It will take some devising, but the answer is for the Minister and his Department to seize control of school bus transportation from the Department of Education, take it over and put bus after bus on the road. I imagine that the Department of Education would be glad to offload it.