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

Commuter rail services in north Kildare have been in crisis for some time because of a lack of carriages, rolling stock and, in particular, parking spaces. My local station at Sallins and Naas is probably the busiest station on the Kildare line and it is almost unusable at this stage because spaces are simply not available after 7 a.m. This has the effect of frustrating commuters' efforts to get to work and flying in the face of public policy, which is to try to get people onto public transport. A proposal was painstakingly put together by local stakeholders and representatives, as well as interested parties, to extend parking facilities there but I was told this morning that CIÉ rejected that proposal at a board meeting in the past couple of days. At this point, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport must intervene as the matter has reached crisis point. Our services are bursting at the seams. The Minister referred me to the National Transport Authority, which referred me back to him. We are going in a circle and nothing is being done. Will the Taoiseach ask the Minister to intervene?

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