Ms Doireann Walsh:

I want to address something Deputy Paul Murphy said in respect of public transport. I am from a rural area where there is public transport but it is not great. I used the train to get here this morning. I caught the 6.15 a.m. train from Cork. I live in Bandon, which is quite far south. The nearest train station to me is in Cork city, which is 40 minutes up the road. People are being told to ditch their cars. That is great for people who live in urban areas and have a bus stop down the road. It is not great in places where people need to drive to get somewhere. At the end of the day, I cannot go anywhere if I ditch the car. The only place I can still get to if I ditch the car is school. I can get to school, which is brilliant, and I am not saying that is a bad thing at all.

I also wish to talk about the price of public transport. It is quite expensive. There is a shopping centre in Wilton, which is approximately 30 minutes up the road from the Bandon bus stop. It costs €7.50 for a child return ticket. I know people with Leap cards who are going around Dublin for practically nothing. It is unfair that I have to pay €7.50 to go to a shopping centre. That is not sustainable at all for somebody of my age. If I want to go shopping of a weekend, I cannot get €7.50 every weekend. I am lucky because I have parents who will give me that money but some people do not. It is expensive. My train ticket to come here this morning was €65. That is ridiculous. It is so expensive. For me to get from Cork to Dublin should not cost €65. A child's ticket should not be €65. That is mad.

It was said earlier that it is frustrating to be a young person, and it is. Most of us do not have the vote. Those above the age of 18 can vote but the rest of us cannot. We do not get to choose who makes the decisions for us. At the end of the day, the nine of us here represent a very small sample of the young people in Ireland. We need our politicians to listen to us. I want to emphasise that. We need politicians to listen to us. We are lucky because we have had the opportunity to come to the House and speak to the committee today. However, there are many other young people in Ireland who do not have such an opportunity and will not get to have their voices heard by politicians. Every adult in the country can put numbers in boxes and vote. We must make commitments. We have to come to Dublin. We have to write speeches. It should not be that difficult for us to have our voices heard. There needs to be change in that regard.