Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Graham for the opening statement. It is clear from it that the number of passengers is growing across all the services. This is very welcome news. I see we have increased numbers on the buses, the Luas services and everywhere. We have increased the use of public transport and this is all very welcome. What springs to mind immediately in this context is capacity in this regard. On several occasions, we have had the Minister in here and he has, of course, made a great case for BusConnects and the removal of cars from the road to make space for the buses. Yet when I talk to people, most tell me that is not the issue. Instead, they tell me the issue is that buses are always full when they arrive and not that the cars are blocking the passage of the buses. I welcome the commitment that more services will be put in place and additional buses will be put on many of these routes.

The major issue we need to be looking at is expanding this network in future. The Luas to Lucan is one of the services we want to see moving along. I would like to get an update on these projects, including DART+. A whole range of issues exists here concerning where these projects are at and how soon we are going to see the resulting new capacity getting to the stage where we will have people travelling on them. MetroLink is the one project that springs to mind immediately. At this stage, the project has almost taken generations. We need to see movement on expanding this capacity.