Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 28 May 2025
Committee on Transport
National Transport Authority: Engagement
2:00 am
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
May I come back in for just a minute on that? I just want to press the urgency of this. Even if it were not a catering cart, perhaps a vending machine could be put there. The first train leaves Sligo at 5.40 a.m., and people travel from Donegal and from all around. Because we do not have cancer care services anywhere in the north west, many people go to hospital appointments in Dublin. No shops are open by the time we get on the train. An elderly woman fainted last week. No one could give her water and then she had to get off the train at the next stop. There is nothing at all on the trains, and it is one of the longer services. Because there is no looping system or because we do not have a second track, often people could be on the train for three and a half hours. That really needs to be listened to. Even if it is not a profit-making service, there have to be some kinds of subsidies to provide a basic service to which people are entitled, especially when it is one of the longer routes.
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