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

I thank Deputy Brophy for raising this important issue, which is causing enormous concern across the capital city. BusConnects is Government policy. It is a €2 billion investment in improving our bus services, not only in Dublin but also in Cork and Galway.

Some people in my constituency spend more than an hour each day travelling to work on the bus. That is an hour in and back which is ten hours a week. BusConnects, if we get it right, could reduce journey times by half.

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This would mean that people could spend an extra five hours a week with their families or on their own daily lives. It is clear that we need to get it right. When I met the chief executive officer of the National Transport Authority last week, I expressed the enormous concerns of many people in Dublin about the proposals, particularly regarding direct routes into the city centre and the termination of routes long before the city centre. I said that the authority needs to make major modifications to the plan and I asked that a revised plan with major modifications be submitted and put to consultation again.

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