Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will continue on from Deputy Kenny's point about the western rail corridor and the question I finished on about freight. Having a west coast line running south to Rosslare and connecting to Europe is a great opportunity, as is the Limerick to Foynes freight line. I read an article in The Irish Timeson the opportunity to include that line in the trans-European network, which could make it a little easier to access funding. I take Mr. Strachan's point that if everything is a priority, nothing is. We have to focus on where we will get the best return for our money, serving the largest number of people.

We heard about constraints on national development plan funding, etc. The communication of what we are trying to do in transport is important. Any time Anne Graham and Hugh Creegan from the NTA are at the committee, they know their stuff and are able to answer every question. That is a great asset for the NTA. They are always willing to engage with this committee and local authorities. In my time as a councillor, the NTA would meet us, which is important. I would like to see that continue. The public consultation on BusConnects was excellent. It was a long public consultation. When the first draft came out, there was an admission that the NTA had got some things wrong and it would go back and have another look. There was good engagement. There is a sense now that most people are fairly satisfied with what is coming out. Within one or two years of the service operating, and it is operating well, people forget what they had previously and adapt to the new one.

On large-scale infrastructure projects, I think we all sense the frustration with how long a project can take from the concept to the commissioning stage. In Mr. Strachan's experience overseas in the UK and Australia, etc., does he consider the way we here go about large-scale public infrastructure projects to be unnecessarily slow? We nearly need to get every stage absolutely right before someone will make the decision to move to the next stage.

I understand that somebody has taken responsibility for a very large investment but no matter what the project is, there is always a sense of chopping and changing as they proceed. Do we need to get it 100% right at every stage or can we rely on the credibility and experience of the project managers and people who are developing the project? How does Mr. Strachan compare Ireland with his experiences overseas?