Ms ?mer Deane:

I thank the Senator. In terms of what we are doing on the rail project, from a shared island perspective, it is recognising that rail is a core part of the infrastructure on the island that needs such a level of strategic investment. As for the service and increasing the frequency, that is a first step towards that. I do not think it is going to be everything the Enterprise service needs and that is why, as I mentioned, there is a bigger piece of work to be done in respect of the all-island rail review being taken forward by the Department of Transport and increasing the new rolling stock. The hope is that there may be PEACE funding available for that. Specifically, what we expect is that the Department of Transport itself will match the €12.5 million it is receiving from the shared island unit and so in a way, it is really a €25 million project to get to the hourly frequency. The idea is to build that up, starting in the autumn of this year and when it is fully rolled out, as the Senator noted, in the first quarter of next year, that should mean an additional seven trains per day during the core daytime hours. It should make a significant difference. That is our objective and it is also to help build the case and to build the commuter and community base to use the train and to have the confidence to use the train and to look forward to that bigger scale investment the line will need over the coming years.