Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Yes. The response went from "This is the end of the world" to "Oh my God, this is brilliant". It proved the case.

Looking at the route through the lens of today, what we have on the Stillorgan road is not good enough. Getting down to the very local, the question is about what Donnybrook village, for instance, is for. Is it a distributor road for cars into the city centre or is it a village for the local community? My view is that it is the latter. Another example is Ballsbridge village. I use it a lot as a pedestrian and cyclist. The current configuration is horrific. It is utterly dismissive of the pedestrian. The situation with timings and the ability to cross the road is awful, dangerous and completely car-dominated. The centre of Ballsbridge village should function as the centre of the village.

One of the changes that will help and benefit us is BusConnects. It will not impact on Donnybrook but it will impact on Ballsbridge. The latter is one of the three projects that are not yet through planning. It will give an opportunity to calm down the whole village and change it from being a car distributor route into the city centre to a place that facilitates high-quality public transport, cycling, walking and cars. It is not about taking the car out completely. The current situation in Ballsbridge is the same right across Dublin and in cities and towns across the country. We have allowed our urban areas to become car parks and car transport systems. That takes from the sense of place and community, from health and from efficiency because it leads to gridlock. It just does not work and it has to change. What we see at present is not good enough. BusConnects will be transformative. The projects are coming on board. Two will start next year and another two will probably get going as well. We will be building four a year. There is no reason we should not complete BusConnects in the next four years and, in so doing, really transform the city for the better. I do not see that stopping. As I said earlier, that is an absolute first priority. We got the proposals through planning. Now let us build.

It is true what the Senator said about the 46A. The words of the song are: "So I jumped on a bus to Dún Laoghaire, stoppin' off to pick up my guitar." It would sound slightly different with "I jumped on the S6".