Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will talk about rail transport, and how it can contribute to balanced regional development as we deal with the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

We are beginning to see a new model of working, which could be a significant driver of regional development if we can continue to develop our rail transport infrastructure to service our regions. This is the model of hybrid remote working, where employees mostly work remotely but come into the office perhaps once a week, or a few times a month. Companies and employees are still experimenting, and we do not know what the post-Covid-19 landscape will look like, but experience has shown that once employers adopt a "remote first" approach, as they have been forced to do during the pandemic, many employees only occasionally need to be in the office. Hybrid remote working offers many people, who live in the capital for employment reasons, the opportunity to move out into our regions where they can enjoy a better quality of life and our rail infrastructure can be a key enabler to make that happen.

Progress has been made in modernising our rail network to make the capital more accessible from our regional cities: Cork and Galway are now just over two and a half hours by rail to Dublin, while Limerick and Waterford are just over two hours. I believe it is possible, however, with fairly boring continuous engineering improvements, to increase speeds so that all our regional cities are under two hours from Dublin. Once the spine of our network is upgraded, we can look at a continuous programme of reopening lines and re-orienting our bus services to feed into this network, with a particular focus on funding Local Link to increase the accessibility of rural towns and villages. Equally, we must improve connectivity within our regions, increasing the level of service between Galway and Waterford, through Clare, Limerick and large towns in south Tipperary, such as Cahir, Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir, and on the line in north Tipperary through Roscrea and Nenagh. I am essentially talking about making our country much smaller to increase economic opportunities for people living across the State via the new hybrid working arrangements that many employers have introduced.

Rail can also drive development within our cities and regions. In Limerick, we have an opportunity to reopen lines. I hope we can reopen the Limerick-Adare rail line in time for the prestigious Ryder Cup, which is to be held in Adare Manor on its 100th anniversary in 2027. Simultaneously, we can reinstate the line further to Foynes, to enable the ambitious plans for expanding the port to drive the offshore renewable energy revolution. We can establish a suburban rail network for Limerick, with new stations at Ballysimon, Moyross and Raheen, and expand capacity by doubling the track between Limerick and Limerick Junction and begin the work of planning a rail link to Shannon Airport.

I met members of the Green Party in Westmeath last night, who urged me to work with the Minister on the issue of Killucan station. I noted the remarks made earlier by Deputy Clarke but there are, of course, many other possibilities.

Rail has the ability to be a huge driver of regional development. By increasing the quality of our intercity rail network and opening new lines, we can take advantage of how the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the nature of work and revitalise our regions.

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