Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the increase in funding in the past two years but the Minister must acknowledge that we are coming from a very low base. The plain fact is that this year, Irish Rail is €48 million below what it requires simply to stand still. The Minister referred to the review of the capital plan and what will happen over the next ten years, but what will happen here and now? What will happen those people who have seen new timetables for their services, which show increased journey times due to the condition of tracks that require trains to go slower? What will happen with rail carriages that are bursting at the seams? We will not have any further carriages until, at minimum, late 2019, if it is reconditioned carriages, or 2022 were new carriages to be ordered in the morning. The Minister is not answering that question. Funding is available in the Juncker plan, which is a point I have made to the Minister umpteen times at the Oireachtas transport committee, and CIÉ and the NTA should be making that investment in our rail network. The Minister referred to the national planning framework and he is right that we should be encouraging residential development along existing rail lines. We are not doing it, however, and in any event the existing lines lack any further capacity. What is happening here and now, not in ten years' time?

The Minister failed even to acknowledge the point I made in the last minute and a half of my opening statement. It is a matter Deputy O'Dea raised with the Minister in December 2017. The Minister gave an undertaking to come back to the House having looked into the defined pension scheme for the tens of thousands of people who have paid into it and who have a legitimate expectation of a defined pension. I hope the Minister will take his two-minute reply to answer their concerns.

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