Mr. Jim Meade:

Any small disruption on a high intensity network is always going to cause us problems. It is tricky to timetable it all when there are different types of trains, as I said earlier, such as local haul trains with diesel commuter trains and electric commuter trains. Getting that pattern and the times right is a bit of a black art. It is all done at the same time. Certainly, the infrastructure side of it is always going to be a question of whether we have that resilience in the network to be able to deal with an incident or not.

I am happy to say that we did get CEF funding to allow us to do a detailed study on four tracks, or 4 North as we call, to understand how we do it, where is the best place to do it and over what distance. If we are to build for the future over the long term, we need extra infrastructure and track work. We know that the greater Dublin area study that the NTA did from 2022 to 2042 recognises that this in the future. It also did some capacity analysis to say when we will need it. That study is there and we will be looking at that. It is revised every four to five years and is due for a revision shortly.

We have outgrown the predicted growth on that route. Based on commentary earlier from some of the Deputy's colleagues, we will outgrow it again because there is such an intensification of housing provision along that route. That is the right thing to do. We want densification on the transport corridors. However, those corridors must be able to support and deal with that densification. They must be able to deal with the nuances the system throws up, whether an electrical or mechanical issue, as the Deputy mentioned, or a passenger issue. We experience all of those issues.