Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)

I thank the witnesses for coming in and for their statements. I note what they said about the number of bus journeys in the State increasing by 32 million in one year alone and that TFI local services are up 5.8 million in one year alone. That is reflected in Kerry, where the Local Link Kerry has been a very successful public transport model. There were 160,000 journeys there in 2019 but this year it expects there will be over 530,000 passenger trips by Local Link Kerry, so it is a great success story.

I want to pick up on an earlier question about the transport infrastructure associated with that. It came to me when a student in MTU in Tralee asked me about trying to ensure a bus shelter was installed on the west of the town. There are a number of routes coming from Fenit, Ballyheigue and Ardfert into the town. The bus stop is about a mile to the west side of Tralee town. There does not seem to be a very clear process. I think Mr. Creegan said that it has to be approved by the local authority. Driving up through Foynes and Abbeyfeale, I can see the new bus shelters that have been installed there in a relatively short time. It seems that when I go to the council, it talks about going to the NTA, while the NTA is saying it has to be approved by the local authority. There is talk of section 38 procedures. Is there any way it could be clarified to give a timeline and a clear process as to how necessary bus shelters can be installed? We all know about westerly wind and rain, especially going into the winter. It seems to be a year now since I first started raising the issue of this bus shelter. There is space there. The process to get a bus shelter installed just seems very cumbersome. In other counties, it seems to be easier or quicker to do it. Is there consistency across the various local authorities, in the witnesses' opinion?