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

On that point, I wrote to a constituent today about BusConnects. The issue of speed is absolutely critical. In Swords, the current journey time to the city centre is 71 minutes. I am not sure whether that figure is from the CSO or the Department. Without intervention, it will rise to 80 minutes. With the BusConnects projects coming on stream under the A spine, the proposal is to reduce that time to 40 minutes, which is a pretty decent time for a journey of approximately eight miles. Comparatively, the DART time is 28 or 29 minutes from nearby Malahide, with the MetroLink, when delivered, taking 25 minutes.

They are all relatively comparable but, as pointed out, in the context of those corridors that are the essential component of BusConnects, while it is great to have all these extra buses and extra capacity, improved timetabling, the cross-city, as I call them, interlinking buses and additional destinations, ultimately, they will all be on the same roads. Without that quality bus corridor, as Senator Horkan referred to, everything grinds to a halt. I am pleased to hear the Minister’s ambition that the process will be completed within a reasonable period, namely four years, or close to 2030. I make it 2028 or 2029.

To come back to the Minister before some concluding remarks in relation to MetroLink-----