Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy asked whether this is priority one, two or three. I will say in all honesty that it is number one. I have said so in numerous places, and not just here. It involves closing a gap because there is nothing at present in many instances. As we come out of Covid and pursue the Town Centre First strategy, many people are now engaged in remote working and benefit from having public transport so it is priority number one. You could argue that it should be faster but if you look over the past six months, you can see we have been introducing a new service or two new services pretty much every week. We are launching new bus services week in and week out. If you look at Transport for Ireland on social media, you will see the full list covering the past six months. Week in and week out, we are announcing new services. This will continue next week, when the NTA will present in more detail further services to be added. It is a priority.

It operates in difficult circumstances where there is a gap in our PSO funding for all. This is public service funding. It is not commercial. It does not cover the costs or even a fraction of them so it requires that kind of political commitment and that is certain and is there. We are in the early stages but it has proved really successful. Passenger numbers are way ahead of projections. As the Deputy says, every politician around this country, particularly those representing rural Ireland and the areas where those 25 new routes have already been delivered, would say the same thing to me, namely, that this should be our number one priority and it is.