Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for being here. It is good to hear about all the progress being made in this field. I was in a meeting next door so I apologise. I read all the statements in advance.

A lot is happening in this space and there have been huge improvements. It is important we acknowledge that. It is great to hear the Department say that €500 million has been invested in new infrastructure and accessible services from design stage and €80 million is being looked at to retrofit older infrastructure to make it accessible. That is all positive and it must happen.

At this committee we speak a lot about removing barriers for people and making things easily accessible. It is good to hear from the NTA what is happening on the five recommendations that Access Earth made to the committee around consistent bus stop upgrades, safety measures on islands, enhanced rural transport accessibility and ongoing training. The witnesses encompassed much of that in their opening statements. I thank them for that.

I talked about local issues yesterday. I am sure the witnesses are sick of my local issues, but here we go. The orbital buses under BusConnects have been a huge success at making our city more accessible, in particular for people who are not necessarily going directly into town. They have been a game changer for many people. In my area we are still waiting for the W6 to move entirely, to get over Hazelhatch Bridge. The L52 and L51 have been welcome, but it comes up again and again that the L52 goes from Adamstown to the Blanchardstown Centre and there is a need for it to go to Blanchardstown hospital. People who have accessibility challenges often have to go to medical appointments and hospitals. That small change - we are only talking about a few hundred metres - would make a massive difference. People I speak to, including elderly people, get off one mode of transport and have to hop on another. That is hassle people with accessibility issues do not need.

I came in at the end of the conversation but I imagine my next question has been asked. It relates to accessibility on train and DART services. We have to physically put down a platform to allow people access which means people have to give advance warning and that curtails their freedom. Can anything be done about that? Can anything be learned from international examples? A big budget is available for retrofitting existing public transport infrastructure to make it more accessible. Are there any examples of things that have been done internationally that we could fund locally?