Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to mention two other items aside from the airport, one of which is the reallocation of funding for the A5, which the Minister of State mentioned in his opening remarks. Could he give us a brief overview as to how that arose? Before I comment on the airport, the Minister of State spoke with Deputy O'Rourke earlier about capacity issues and the responsibility of the NTA and others to be responsive to demand issues, particularly the oversubscription of services. I am specifically referring to Bus Éireann and the 101 service, which is an eastern seaboard service to Dublin City University, DCU. The difficulty is, of course, that when third level institutions resumed in September, buses were passing by both travelling students and the general public by the time they reached north Dublin, specifically Balbriggan and other towns in the northern end of what is now to be Dublin Fingal West. Obviously, it is very problematic, particularly when I get a response from the service provider telling me that it is monitoring it or whatever. However, it does not really have capacity to add another bus. Maybe it will have capacity to add a larger bus, but we need to re-evaluate sometimes, and I am sure this is probably applicable in the Minister of State's county, as to how we respond to demand-led problems. There is nothing worse, as I am sure the Minister of State will agree, than dutifully going out to use public transport to cut down on one's emissions and, indeed, reduce costs of congestion and then have the bus drive straight by.