Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Is it not all too slow? I could give the example of the No. 188, which is a new route for which I hand-delivered the timetables. When I was a councillor, I campaigned for this service because everybody knew it was missing. Children and others who live in a town but go to school, shop and do their work in a neighbouring town cannot get a bus service to it. I have spoken to a bus driver who works on the new route and he has told me about the real difference it makes to people to be able to visit family and friends not just once a month but on a daily basis. It is transformative and exactly the type of thing I believe we should be doing to show people the opportunity in our response to climate change. If we improve public transport and connectivity, people do not have to rely on private cars to connect them with the places where they live their lives, work and go to school.

The Minister's approach is at best incrementalism. I recognise that there are challenges in terms of recruitment of drivers. I hear from the operators that there challenges in getting buses that meet the requisite standard. If the Government's signal is that a €56 million plan which is supposed to be rolled out over five years is going to involve €5 million in the first year, with just €4 million of it bring spent, and €10 million in the second year to see where we go, it does not suggest that this is priority one, two or three within its offices, or that it will deliver transformative change.

The Minister saw the climate action plan. RTÉ News latched on to the idea of Connecting Ireland. It had obviously never heard of it before. The idea is that we will provide return services three times a day to and from communities of over 300 people. Rural Deputies and others can see how that has the potential to deliver transformative change in public transport in rural communities that have not been serviced before. People are putting their hand up to use public transport. There is a five-year plan from the NTA. In my opinion, all of the signals from the Government are that if it is delivered at all, it will take well in excess of five years. What does the Minister have to say about that? Is he struggling with the Department to secure funding for it? What are the barriers?