Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

No other members are indicating, so I will make some closing comments. I have never heard as much discussion of the need for public transport as I have in the past three years. It is not only being discussed in the Oireachtas but is also being discussed in council chambers. I have also heard it from the travelling public. Estimates are often a good time to examine the expanse of work that goes on in the Minister's Department and in the National Transport Authority, NTA, and acknowledge, for example, the electric bus fleet that is being rolled out. That was not happening before. Some 41 railcars were delivered at the end of 2021 and the start of 2022. They are now coming into service. There is a framework agreement for 600 electric units. The DART+ scheme is going through various stages of planning. Under the BusConnects scheme, one extra or enhanced service is being rolled out per week, as the Minister said. That is transforming the options for people in rural areas to get to places they could not get to before. Towns that never had buses now have them.

I agree with the Minister that the planning system is frustrating for those projects. It seems we need to get things absolutely correct before we can move ahead. I have often been of the mind that for projects such as those, which chop and change a little, we should get to a 90% level of certainty and allow them to go ahead. We have experts working across infrastructure, construction and transport planning in this country. They can make the necessary changes as we move ahead.

I recently met representatives of the NTA. They told me that one of the biggest issues we have is driver recruitment, training and retention. There are also issues with mechanics. We have a fleet that is in operation for 20 or 21 hours per day. We need good preventative maintenance schemes and good mechanics to keep the fleet reliable and providing the service the public deserve and should expect. The Minister referenced heavy rail maintenance. That is critical for reliability, journey times and the comfort of those journeys.

I acknowledge the work that goes on across the Department and for active travel in our local authorities. Funding for active travel came in in the first year of this Government's term. We provided the resources for it. I can see how it would take a bit of time to get up to scale and start running and gelling, but we are now starting to see that. I hope we continue that trajectory in the coming years.

Councillors and Members of the Oireachtas have visited the Dutch Cycling Embassy, etc., and that is a model we want to replicate. I can see us delivering that over the next five to ten years. We know that transport projects are slow to deliver but they do endure. Investing in rail is investing in an asset that will last for 80 or 100 years, with minor tweaks along the way, and capacity can be improved as it is needed.

I thank the Minister for bringing forward the Estimates. I did not ask any questions but only made comments. Does the Minister wish to make any closing comments? No. I thank him and his officials for attending and engaging with the committee.