Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is one or the other. There is certainly a huge amount of bus activity. In 2007, I think it was 1% or 2% of people who were travelling to the airport by bus, while it is now about 34%. This should, though, be 54% or 64%. The metro will help, but not everyone is coming from the city centre or from the metro line. Many people from outside Dublin are using Dublin Airport. If you happen to be in the car park, which I rarely am, you can see a great number of Northern-registered cars. People from the North are coming down and using Dublin Airport because it has got such good connectivity. Again, this is really about providing the transport services. The better, the more reliable, the cheaper and the more frequent, the more people will use them. I think we need to keep working on this.

We talked earlier about the Stillorgan quality bus corridor. It got people out of their cars. Everywhere we can, we should be trying to get people out of their cars. I am not talking about rural Ireland, about Connemara, Clifden or Ballyconneely. I know the Minister is very familiar with those areas. I am talking about areas where there is volume and there is density. Why would I drive in here, even with a free parking space, when it would take half an hour when I can get in on the bike in less than 20 minutes? It does not make sense. On the airport, I think we need to get rid of the cap and not just to raise it. If we raise it to 40 million, we will be back here in five years to raise it to 45 million or 50 million. It should not be there at all. Equally, however, we should be trying to stimulate more regional airport access. I know the Minister has done a good job in this regard in terms of the regional airport programme.

The Minister has so many great State agencies under his remit. Most people would love to be the Minister for Transport because everybody's life is impacted every day by transport. People get up in the morning and wonder how they will get to work and if they will be facing gridlock at the end of their roads. As the Minister knows, the Luas was transformative for south Dublin when it started in 2004. It just became a magnet that sucked people in. Those living 15 minutes and 20 minutes away from the Luas were willing to walk there because the tram got them to where they wanted to go. There was a guaranteed service and guaranteed journey times. It was worth the walk. It was not about building car parks for everyone and it cannot be.

The Minister has made a real impact on people's lives. All the people working in all the agencies under the remit of the Minister and his Department have agreed to meet us. They have come here to this committee. I was privileged to have been the Acting Chair and Leas-Chathaoirleach for almost two years when Deputy O'Donnell was promoted to be Minister of State and the former Deputy, Joe Carey, was sick. We may take transport for granted and it is only when it goes wrong that we talk about it. In some ways, this is probably always the way it is going to be. So much has transformed, though. I was on the Dublin Regional Authority, as we touched on earlier, in 2006, and in 2003 and 2004. If I drove in then, because there was no Luas and the bus would not move, I would be leaving my house at 5.10 p.m. for a 6.30 p.m. meeting because I could not be sure I could get in on time any other way. The M50 transformed people's lives too. The Minister will remember that it would take an hour at any time of the day to get from The Goat to Knocklyon, through Rathfarnham and Churchtown, in the 1990s before the advent of the M50.

Much has been done, therefore, and the public service performance report is good. I thank the Minister for his service. There is, though, plenty more we can do. At some point, I would still like to see the Minister's Department looking at the eastern bypass, not to build it but to examine the corridor that is still there, through Knockrabo, down through Belfield, across by the Radisson and out to the sea, for light rail, cycling routes or whatever. It is an opportunity, but if it is built on, we will never get it back.

We are only touching on the transport aspect today. In the context of the Minister's other Department, we are really going to have to ramp up addressing cybercrime. We have ramped up this activity and we are continuing to do so. We would all almost not exist without our phones, computers and email. We are using them for payments and real-time information. We must ensure our IT systems are robust, right across the State and in private and public settings, to ward off attacks from nefarious activity.