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

It is useful information. The railway order for DART+ is for the Maynooth line and the Kildare line. They are in a process. One of the issues I raised with the NTA was the prospect of a parallel process for some additional extensions. The argument made by the NTA is that if we were to go back to the beginning the process would be delayed. There is no reason, however, that there could not be a separate process to add on some additional projects. The DART+ south west project, for example, stops at Hazelhatch. There is absolutely no reason why it could not go to Sallins or even to Newbridge, whether or not they have done any work in advancing that. On the other line, it could go from Maynooth to Kilcock, at the very least. The Dart+ West project is going to include the construction of eight large railway sheds in Kilcock. Essentially, the Dart will be going to Kilcock and the only problem is that people would not be able to get on. It seems like a daft idea that we would not be picking that low-hanging fruit. There is not a whole lot in the way between Hazelhatch and Sallins and perhaps this could be asked for. Since Covid, if one is listening to the traffic reports in the morning one is far more likely to hear about congestion on the periphery. There has been a more dramatic change there with regard to delays. It strikes me that these are projects that could be bolted onto those two DART+ projects. We should be asking the NTA what work it has done to advance them so they could happen in parallel, albeit with a separate process. We were speaking about electric cars. The best way to move people around is on public transport, if that could be made available with more frequent services and so on, which would go with the DART+ projects.