Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his opening statement. We have these Estimates every year and there is little we can do other than talk about where the money is going. We have no power to change things. Sometimes people looking in think we do but we do not. I would like to get a little more information regarding the reallocation of funds, particularly the public transport funding. I am someone who lives in the west. There was an announcement recently regarding rail in different areas and additional services being put in place. One of the places where there were no services added in was the Sligo to Dublin service. If I wanted to go home now, the last train went 15 minutes ago. That is the same for many people from the west working in Dublin. It is an issue that needs to be looked at. We need to have a rail service that works for everybody. We need to see additional investment, particularly in rail services across the country but our intercity services are as slow as they were 100 years ago. That is one issue. In addition, they are infrequent, overcrowded and not working for an awful lot of people. I would be concerned that there is such difficulty with it and yet so much money going astray. I would like to get a commitment from the Minister that there is going to be investment in that service and in all of those services, to connect the regions to each other and to connect them to the capital.

Given the week that is in it, I would raise the issues that came up last Thursday, particularly on Thursday night and the outrageous situation that happened. I pay tribute to the workers in Dublin Bus and the Luas and all the other public transport services across the State and particularly across Dublin who have had such a difficult time in the past few days. I also pay tribute to the Minister's own staff, who I am sure had a pretty sleepless night on Thursday trying to deal with it all. We need to get a reassurance that there is not going to be an impact on services, that the property that was destroyed, the buses and trams and all of that, will be replaced rapidly and that services will come back as quickly as possible.