Mr. Jim Meade:

As the Deputy outlined, we made several changes in December relating to sweating the assets we have as best we can. We intend to significantly improve the services to the full arc of the country, including Sligo, Westport, Galway, Limerick, Kerry, which is at the maximum, Waterford and so on, as we roll out the fleet. We also intend to move to an hourly service and reduce journey times. Those are our two big ticket items on those routes. It is about sweating the assets we have at the moment on the rout in question. We have ambition and plans to add other services to the route and we will be doing that.

The Deputy mentioned the airport. It is, as I outlined, a line item in the All-Island Strategic Rail Review, where all three major airports are called out. It is not currently in either the regional NDP up to 2027 or the revised NDP from 2021 to 2030. It is not in our plans at the moment, but the draft TEN-T proposal from the European Commission targets all major city airports with passenger traffic of more than 12 million passengers to be connected to the heavy rail network by 2040. That is going to align with the ambition in the all-island rail review. The TEN-T proposal is still a draft and may change, but right now that is what the draft says.

Yes, it can be done, but it is up to the Government at a given point to decide whether it wants to do it. We can deliver it if we are asked to do it, but that will come from the Government, through the Department, and probably through the NTA to us.