Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for those details. While I recognise that he is not involved in day-to-day issues, he is responsible for policy. Significant policies are outlined in Project Ireland 2040, which refers to improving the fleet and taking on the challenge of escalating traffic congestion. Anyone travelling on the N22 and trying to get off the Ballincollig bypass at Ovens bridge knows that traffic congestion is escalating.

It is important that there be improvements to this bus route, which serves the wider area. Bus Éireann is positive towards this and is keen to make improvements, but as we saw with route 220 in Ballincollig, there seems to be a bottleneck, in that getting approval from the NTA is a slow process. The NTA answers to the Minister, so I call on him to challenge it to implement policies as quickly as possible so that people can enjoy the benefit of bus services.

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