Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses again for, as Deputy Buckley said, an incredibly compelling presentation. Anybody who thinks logically and rationally can only agree with the case being made by these people.

I will make one final point. Every country is obliged to plan for its future based on the resources it has to deliver on that future. I live in a tiny east-coast Galway village. Two hundred people live there. I would love a train station outside my door; I know that will never happen. There are many similar towns and villages across this country that will never have that resource made available to them. Every country has to prioritise its infrastructural development based on need and resources, and in Ireland we do that through our national development plan. Right now, because of the massive inflation in construction costs, our current national development plan has a €9 billion hole in it. We cannot even deliver what we are setting out to deliver by 2040, and there will have to be a revision and a re-examination of that.

In that context, there will be a section allocated to transport. The pressures now in terms of national transport infrastructure development lie primarily where the most people live. That is how a country is managed. Right now, there are more people commuting to Galway city every day from just the towns of Oranmore and Athenry combined than there are from the whole of County Mayo. That is where the investment in rail is needed right now in the west of Ireland. It is in double-tracking the Dublin-Galway line, particularly from Ballinasloe all the way into Galway city centre, and in significantly developing park-and-ride facilities in Ballinasloe, Woodlawn, Attymon, Athenry and Oranmore, all the way into the city again. That is where we need to make huge additional rail investment in the next ten, 15 or 20 years.

In establishing what those priorities are, we have to be realistic and pragmatic and we have to plan in the best possible manner. I have read extensively every single report that has been done by people who are far more expert than any of us in this room - transport economists who report in a purely objective and rational manner - and their conclusion over and over again is that we will not see rail services reinstated on that line for the next 20 to 30 years. That is the reality, so, as Deputy Harkin says, let us act now. Let us act for the benefit of these communities right now. We could have a greenway live from Athenry all the way to Collooney in five years' time done and dusted and then when the rail comes - this is being done all over the world - pick it up, move the greenway to one side and put in the rail line. By the way, as regards the case Mr. Quinn makes, there are 365 level crossings between Claremorris and Collooney. It is highly likely that if we are ever to develop a rail service north of Claremorris, it will not even be on that line but will be on a completely different line that will be the subject of a CPO, like we do with most other national transport infrastructure.