Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It is very difficult to compare the 2020 income with 2019 because of Covid. The income grew. We understand and acknowledge the earlier point about the provision of services at the time, particularly for key workers. It was impacted by remote working and so on. We understand that. However, there was also feedback from women who said that they did not want to use public transport in the evening, after dark or late at night. What is the NTA doing to understand what will be required to rebuild the use of public transport?

I have been interested in demographic settlement patterns for decades. There has been a doughnut-shaped settlement pattern with Fingal leading the charge in growth, followed by counties Meath and Kildare. They are all putting pressure on the city centre. The three outer counties have a bigger population now than the city centre has. That is abnormal and needs to be rebalanced to an extent.

When you start looking at some of the initiatives like DART+ and MetroLink, the areas that are generating that traffic are the ones that lag far behind. For example, DART+ is going as far as Maynooth and Hazelhatch. Why is it not going as far as Sallins and Kilcock and what can be done to dovetail that with the railway order to do so? It is, in fact, going to Kilcock as a huge facility is going in there; it is just that people will not be able to get on, which seems daft. Perhaps the witnesses could respond to those questions.