Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

If Deputy Duncan Smith had been here in the previous Dáil he would have heard them screaming at me about privatisation every week from the benches over there and me trying to assure them that there was no privatisation agenda of any sort whatsoever. There is no agenda to privatise that I know of. Still, it does not stop people saying that it is a possibility. That is not the objective, and certainly in this particular time. It is just to keep the supplies going, keep the air routes open and ensure that our connectivity is kept going.

On MetroLink, as the Deputy will be aware, there are things going on elsewhere which are possibly more important and significant down the road than what is happening in this House this evening and I have not heard of any artificial delays or plans to delay it in any way at all. In all of these projects, there will be a natural delay now because of Covid but it will be made up quickly. It might be made up totally. I cannot in any way tie my successor onto what is happening with MetroLink but I certainly have had no proposals or suggestions of that happening. It is vital that the major public transport initiatives, which include MetroLink and BusConnects, go ahead. Please God, the situation where we are trying to keep people out of public transport will end and we will get back to these projects which we hope will be very successful. I can assure the Deputy that if there are plans to do that, I know nothing of them.

The Deputy was also looking at the timelines in Dublin Bus for the electric or hybrid buses. There are approximately nine in operation at present. There are 100 due by the end of this year, 500 by 2025 and the ambition is to have a full fleet of low-emission buses by the end of the decade.

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