Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is the case that we have seen a return to a level of congestion and traffic gridlock in cities that we have not seen for quite some time. A lot of that is related to the fact that the economy has improved and people are working again. Passenger numbers on Irish Rail, Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann are increasing. On the Maynooth line, with which Deputy Catherine Murphy and I are familiar, it has not quite got back to where it was at peak but I have no doubt it will get there in the coming months and years.

The reality is that during the lost decade, those ten years I spoke about, we just did not have the money that we needed to invest in public transport. We lost ten years, which we could have used to improve the public transport system. We were able to do some important things in the greater Dublin area, for example, the Phoenix Park tunnel is open and passengers in Deputy Murphy's constituency use that service on many occasions. The Luas cross city is now a reality providing quality public transport to a lot of people and linking up Luas lines and commuter lines. We brought in real time passenger information, RTPI, so that people know when the bus is coming. Some Members may have watched "Prime Time" last night. I am delighted that it was accurate and that the signs on the Luas and Dublin Bus were within one or two minutes in terms of accuracy. Integrated ticketing was also introduced in the form of the Leap card. Even at a time when we had no money to invest in infrastructure we were able to do some very valuable things.

We are now in a different place as a country and I hope that in the next couple of weeks we will set out a very ambitious ten-year investment plan in infrastructure. Transport must be a big part of that. We will be guided in many ways by the National Transport Authority's greater Dublin area plan which runs up to 2035. Projects in the mix include BusConnects, additional carriages for Irish Rail, the metro project and new Luas lines. Deputy Catherine Murphy will know as well as I do that once one takes the decision to make the investments the lead-in time is very long before they become a reality. I remember the day I signed the order to connect the Luas lines and when my officials told me it would not be open until 2017 I was distraught because I could be anywhere in 2017. As it happens I am here, but public transport is something I really believe in and something in which we will invest very heavily into the future.

It is the case that Irish Rail has no new carriages on order but it is funded to refurbish 30 or 40 carriages and once they are refurbished they will be brought into use in the Limerick and mid-west area and that will have a knock-on effect in terms of allowing for greater capacity in Dublin and on some of our existing lines. While Irish Rail does not have the carriages to run additional peak services it will be able to run additional off-peak services.

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