James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Eamon Ryan for proposing the motion and I acknowledge the contributions already made by Deputies Troy and Cassells.

The Minister is familiar with my face from across the Chamber. I often raise issues of this type and I am a one of his regular correspondents. I am particularly interested in the Kildare rail line. I wrote to the Minister when he was a Member of the Upper House because, as a Trinity Senator, he represented me. I have been raising these issues with the Minister for at least a decade but now he is in a position to do something about them and I hope he will.

I read the original Green Party motion in detail and also the Government amendment, with which I am disappointed. As the Minister stated, the amendment is simple and brief but it could be summarised as the Government encouraging itself to keep doing what it is doing. Einstein defined insanity as repeating the same experiment and hoping for a different result and that appears to be what is involved here.

The myriad benefits of public transport, and investment therein, need hardly to be restated in the course of this debate but I will briefly recap on some of them. There is an obvious environmental impact in reducing emissions and addressing climate change. We know that heat, energy and transport are the three pillars by which climate change will be addressed. Until recently, Dublin Buss was still buying diesel vehicles for its fleet and that is a part of the problem. Investment in public transport across the board goes some way towards addressing those issues.

There are also quality of life consequences when people are not caught in the traffic congestion my colleagues have already mentioned and people having more reliable, affordable, simple and efficient modes of transport. I would go so far as to say that mental health is improved if one has a reliable system of transport to get to work, employment, or wherever one is going. There are considerable opportunities because public transport, like education, is a social enabler and enabler of opportunity. People can access study, work, travel and more places quickly and affordably without the necessity for private cars and the funds necessary to run them. Many students who have taken up studies in parts of the country other than those from where they come will agree with that. Public transport is an enabler when it is provided and done properly.

The Minister mentioned Project Ireland 2040. I had to do a double take while I was watching the debate on the monitor in my office. The Minister referred to the great rail lines that were to come to Kildare in 2040. I am focusing on Kildare. I printed off the executive summary of Project Ireland 2040 and could not find a reference to those rail lines. I moved on to read different articles in The Irish Timesand on thejournal.ie. I found mention of the long-awaited and long-promised DART expansion. I did not realise that was part of Project Ireland 2040 but many of the projects included have been reheated and carried over from earlier times. That will be welcome, if and when it arrives in the next decade, but it is nowhere near as ambitious or broad as it needs to be and that is only from the perspective of my county. There are many more plans and links missing throughout the country.

I particularly noticed the lack of investment in public transport and the lack of ambitious public transport projects when Project Ireland 2040 was announced and I raised the matter on the Order of Business at the time. The Tánaiste, Deputy Coveney, responded to my criticism of the lack of investment in public transport and heavy and light rail by stating that something was being done with Dublin Bus. That typifies the Government's attitude of disinterest and disengagement with specifics.

I will turn to the specifics of the experiences I have every day. I came here on the train from Sallins this morning. Our car parks are oversubscribed and it is impossible to get a space after 7 a.m., as the Minister knows well. Carriages on the train are often full to capacity so even if one manages to get a car parking space, by hook or by crook, one often cannot get onto the train thereafter. The tracks are full in the sense that there is no flexibility or scope for timetabling, scheduling of additional services or complementary services because we only have a twin track line most of the way out. We need investment in track work and park-and-ride facilities, not just around train stations but in places such as Goffs which would help to take cars out of circulation further up the chain. We need to invest in a feeder bus network. It would not take a considerable amount of imagination to run shuttle services around provincial towns without railway stations so people could walk to a stop, get on feeder buses that will take them to a train station and allow them to leave their cars at home. That will free up room in the car parks and provide many other benefits.

I could go on because I have a long list but I am conscious that other colleagues want to comment. When the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government left office in 2011, there was a fine strategy called Transport 21 on the table. It had things like the DART inter-connector, the DART underground, Metro West, circle lines, the Navan rail lines that Deputy Cassells referred to, and many other benefits. It is not a bad plan at all but it has been sitting on a shelf for ten years. It is costed and planned, specifications have been done and it is ready to go. The Minister could do a lot worse than reinstating Transport 21.

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