Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The targets for Irish Rail are 75:25. It is at 48 million journeys and heading for 75 million journeys by 2025. The Minister said the procurement process for 300 carriages has started, albeit it is intended to be 600 new vehicles over ten years, but all that has been issued is a call for expressions of interest that it is hoped to receive by the end of July. At the snail's pace at which we tend to operate, delivery will not be within two to three years, as the Minister has just said, it will be in 2024. Those are the words of Irish Rail, whose representatives told me so today. The 41 shorter-term solutions to which the Minister referred are still two years away. What level of priority and emergency is the Minister declaring in this regard? When it comes to other aspects of procurement, we have seen how projects can be fast-tracked depending on the level of focus. The Government is not applying the appropriate priority to fast-tracking this process. Rather, it is going around the houses while families continue to experience commuting misery and the detrimental effects continue to be felt in our ability to attract people to public transport. The more people are squashed into a train, the more liable they are to resort to their cars.

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