Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)

Returning to Mr. Creegan's point, tolls or restrictions on people going into the city would be deeply unpopular. At this stage, it would also be deeply unfair because, as I said, if we take Wicklow as an example, people want to use public transport but the service is not there for them. For example, the 133 is the bus from Wicklow town into Dublin. Every September, there are problems because more students are trying to use it. On one particular day, the 7.20 a.m. bus was full and was delayed; the 7.40 a.m. was full and delayed by ten minutes; the 8.10 a.m. was full and delayed by ten minutes; the 8.40 a.m. bus was full and delayed by ten minutes; and the 9.30 a.m. was full and delayed by 30 minutes. A student who was waiting for that bus ended up getting her chronically ill mother to drive her in to her examination. She has since bought a car. That is the problem. If Mr. Creegan comes to Wicklow, all he will see are cars, usually relatively old ones, with "N" and "L" plates on them. People are being forced into cars because the service is not there.

I am sure the NTA has received a lot of representations on this as well. Capacity on the train from Gorey to Dublin has been reduced by 30%. Instead of having a seated capacity for 262 people, the four-car train now only has a seating capacity for 185 people. Numerous people have fainted on that train because they are standing for an hour and a half on the journey into Dublin.

There have been some improvements. I am a bus user and I appreciate it when it works, but there are so many areas that need improvements. If someone takes a bus or train and it is so uncomfortable that they cannot take that bus or train again, they will purchase a car if they are in a position to do it. How does the NTA resolve those issues?

Year after year, I have been talking about the issues on buses in September and we still do not see any improvement. Similarly, on the capacity of the trains, four carriages on the trains from Rosslare into Dublin are not enough. People keep on raising these issues and they are not seeing any improvements in those particular instances. How can we deal with this? I have been contacting Bus Éireann, the NTA, Go-Ahead Ireland and Dublin Bus but we are not seeing the improvement we need to see. What is the answer because people are getting really frustrated and I am getting frustrated raising it? We see the poor outcomes that arise when people do not have the services they need. People are buying cars and that is making everything worse and making it harder to achieve our targets.