Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I read the opening statements last night and followed the earlier discussion from my office. I will try not to repeat things that have been mentioned. I thank the witnesses for attending to discuss this important topic. As one of the few members of this committee who lives in Dublin, I appreciate that running a public transport system is not the easiest thing in the world to do, particularly when facing the challenges of a city built long before we had as many cars as we do now. Our desire to use cars whenever we can obviously clogs up traffic. That said, I cycled in this morning so at least I am not taking up a parking space.

On Friday last, when I posted on Twitter that this meeting was to take place, I received 20 times the number of reactions to my tweet than I have received to any previous tweet about pretty much anything. This is clearly an issue that people are interested in. There are so many issues to discuss and I do not have anywhere near the time I need to do so. Someone rang me on Friday and I told them I had been 27 minutes on the phone with them, whereas I would only have six or seven minutes at the committee.