Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

They understand it and know it very well. In conversations the Deputy might want to speak about something different but these people know what they are talking about. It is not fair to the reputation of those people for the Deputy to have said what he did. I wanted to correct that.

We all recognise the importance of investment in public transport and overall planning. The national planning framework and the ten-year investment going with the first half of that has a 2:1 split in terms of spend on public transport versus roads. Everybody agrees that where it is at all possible, it is better to have public transport and invest in that in order that people can have the choice to use it. In some places it is not a choice just yet, although it will be if we have proper planning and densification models over the country, with future population growth being dispersed in a proper and clever way so as to make it viable to provide more public transport. That is being done and it is in the plan, which I support.

What happened with the Navan rail line is often misrepresented but I work in that Department and it came across my desk, along with that of the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy. We have not at all prevented the Navan rail line going ahead; it is something I want and I have campaigned about it for the past 20 years. The wording in the regional plan was not right and was out of sync with proper planning and development processes.

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