Mr. Peter Feeney:

In response to a question the Deputy asked, there is a very interesting case study in Oranmore. The station at Oranmore was built under phase one of the western rail corridor and there was no station in Oranmore until then. It is at somewhat of a remove from the village but is now well connected. It now has 60,000 users a year. Its car park is no longer able to take the number of cars that require parking. The area is the focal point for a new suburb of Garraun, which will be built by Galway County Council. That will link to Ardaun and the industrial estates at Parkmore, where we have all our medical technology companies. We built the station in Oranmore. We built it and they came. The people use it.

The next step is to Tuam, which is the biggest town in the county but is not connected by rail to the western rail corridor. It is a large industrial base that was recently bypassed. It has a big population and is the capital of north Galway. Irish Rail has a substantial land bank in the centre of the town. Everything needs to be working together and every synergy must be capitalised upon to deliver what would be an important piece of public transport infrastructure.