James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the people who have come in to the committee today from Irish Rail. I acknowledge that throughout the pandemic it has been extremely difficult for many people working within public transport. I thank Irish Rail for coming through what has been an horrendous two years. I hope we are out of the worst of it. I wish Irish Rail well with the recovery of passenger traffic.

My questions are focused on the all-island rail review. I am a big believer in Ireland having the ability many of our European neighbours have in terms of high-speed rail between our major population centres on the Cork-Dublin, Dublin-Belfast and Limerick-Dublin lines, which would all be significantly busy lines. Does Mr. Meade envisage a time when we could get the journey times on those journeys in and around an hour and a half, or even less, by implementing traffic speeds in excess of 250 km per hour to 300 km per hour, which have been in use in many European countries for decades?