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

That is fascinating to hear. I feel these facilities would make a huge difference to the lives of people who live in rural Ireland.

While we have been here, a couple of people have tweeted to ask me why I do not use public transport to get to and from Dublin. The answer is that doing so adds an hour and a half to my journey. I have to go to a train station, park my car, get the train to Dublin and then commute from the train station in Dublin to my place of work. In a job like this, I cannot afford to lose three hours in a working day. That is the case for many others who have to come to Dublin for work, even if they are only doing it once or twice a week. There are thousands upon thousands of people like me who have to come to the city as part of their role or job.

With regard to the integration of the bus routes operated by Dublin Bus, it is an excellent service but there is obviously scope for improvement. I compliment Dublin Bus. When it comes to taking cars off the road outside of the city limits and beyond M50, there is great scope to totally change the interaction between transport inside Dublin and outside of it, thereby taking more and more cars off the road that would otherwise come into the city centre, effectively blocking up space needed for the introduction of mobility infrastructure for cycling and walking. I referenced Paris. I have been there and using public transport there is a really enjoyable experience. Fantastic work has been done under the current mayor to improve cycling and mobility infrastructure. We can do that in Ireland but we have to address the issue of the traffic coming in and out of Dublin city on the arterial routes. That could be done through investment in park-and-ride infrastructure. There is some disagreement on that. Some feel that this solution is only half thought-out because the car is not ruled out completely. However, if you are living in a rural house or a small town or village, you will just not have the same level of services as someone living in a major town. I am trying to think of a town outside of Dublin that does not have rail infrastructure in place. If you live in a town of 5,000 or 6,000 people that does not have rail infrastructure, as many people in the arterial towns around Dublin do, you will want a relatively decent bus service. That will not be available in rural areas, and particularly smaller towns and villages, however. I would love to see more work being done on that.

I will make an observation on a bugbear of mine. I am talking about always being referred back to the National Transport Authority, NTA, in respect of policy. That is quite interesting because, when you put those questions to the NTA, it cannot give you a straight answer. That is absolutely unacceptable. It is something we have to deal with effectively. We need a strategy in place to allow us to put questions to civil servants and to be given answers when a point is to be made.