Mr. Tim Gaston:

Traffic congestion can be car congestion, HGVs, vans and all sorts of other vehicles as well. We will see what the surveys show shortly. The surveys have just been completed on the canal cordon and other traffic. Certainly the sense we have, and other data we look at shows, that we have a higher level of traffic congestion in the streets than we had in 2019 but we are carrying more passengers as well, as was mentioned in the opening statement. We are now at record levels. Interestingly, that is not in the morning or evening peak, Monday to Friday. While we still have a peak, it is not as high as we experienced because workers are not coming into the office five days a week so that market has reduced. That means that Irish Rail in the Dublin area is operating at approximately 80% of pre-Covid levels. The bus and Luas have come in and delivered between the peaks, in the evenings and particularly at weekends. We are carrying significantly more passengers at weekends than we previously would have. That is encouraging because that is people who are using public transport for leisure purposes. We now have a higher number of people using public transport for leisure than for going to work. That includes shopping, visiting friends or granny, going to matches and so on. There has definitely been a change in how people use it which for us is very encouraging. It is a more even spread of passenger demand.

As the Deputy said, fare reductions have certainly played into that, particularly in the student market. We are aware that more students in many areas are travelling from home rather than staying at college because of the cost of accommodation. That has played into it as well. The economy is doing well and when an economy is doing well, people travel more and they have more in their pocket to go out in the evenings and to travel. It has all led toward that growth, which happened suddenly. We did not anticipate the second half of this year being at the levels that we are at.