Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It could have been the Hague. I thought it was Amsterdam. I do not know. There is a lovely old VW bus in the footage as well. They had those conflicts at the time, but anybody now who goes to any of those cities - Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Utrecht or anywhere like that - sees the cycling infrastructure in place. That takes time to deliver and takes people to be brave and say, "This is what we will do, this is how we will deliver it, and it might take five, ten or 15 years, but this is what we will end up with." The next government and the government after it need to stick firmly to this commitment. We see in other sectors that where we chop and change direction, it provides no surety for anybody and it is just a recipe for disaster and further congestion.

The DART expansion is another one. There is 50 km of electrified rail out there. DART+ will bring that to 150 km, with carriages on order. There are 600 carriages in that framework. About 180 of them are being constructed and going to delivery at the moment. There is the battery electric service as well. That will go to Drogheda first, which is right. It is planned. It has been planned for quite some time. It is well advanced. Those carriages will start arriving in the next year to year and a half. They will go into test, commission and service. Similarly, the other end of that project is the DART extension to Wicklow town. That will take another three years. That may be optimistic but I think it is deliverable. That is what we need to stick to and that is the messaging that needs to be clear out there. We need consistency in this. We cannot chop and change. That is the most important message for anybody in dealing with public transport, congestion and the life this will bring back to our towns and villages.