Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Acting Chairperson referred to Connecting Ireland, very important infrastructure the Government is focused on delivering. Nevertheless, I hear Doireann on the issue of cost, whether from Donegal, Bandon or anywhere else. It is astronomical. We are talking about an additional €10, on top of the €65, as well as the cost to get from the house to the station. It is astronomical and prohibitive.

Our guests are the core bunch of activists who do not want to pollute the air. They want either to cycle where possible, to walk or at least to use public transport. We want to work with them and that is another benefit of this meeting. Where there is public transport, the costs have fallen but there remain huge gaps in the service, which we recognise, and we will continue to push for further connectivity. The Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, a party colleague of mine, was in attendance earlier and he speaks about his constituency, Mayo, where there are huge gaps in service, along with Galway, which the Acting Chairperson mentioned.

I do not want to cover only public transport, given our guests raised many different issues, but as a committee member, I will take away several of the points and we will see what we can do over the coming months to work either with existing proposals in legislation or to further their cause through other acts of the committee.