Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 26 September 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Review of National Planning Framework and Climate Targets: Discussion

Ms Anne Graham:

On the capacity of public transport, it is our ambition to build the capacity in all our public transport systems. However, we are now coming up against constraints, which are not funding constraints but to do with our situation of full employment in the State. We are having difficulties in getting enough drivers to be able to build the BusConnects network we want to deliver as quickly as possible. That is a constraint of full employment and a full economy. It is something we will have to consider as we move forward, looking at what type of investment we put into our public transport infrastructure to meet employment constraints. Perhaps we will have to look at higher-capacity infrastructure, which comes at a cost. This is something that is reviewed as we look forward.