Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

One of the most significant things in the programme for Government is the towns first idea, which seeks to bring life back into the centres of towns. I am taking Macroom as an example because it is very familiar to me. It is very important that we have good, high-quality and high-frequency public transport services on services such as the Macroom to Cork route.

It is also important to integrate local transport services, including Local Link, that have been very successful in Cork. They need to be connected to ensure accessibility to Macroom. In this Covid-19 world, many people living and working in Macroom may have commuted previously or they may be staying in the town to work for three days a week rather than commuting into Cork for work. We need to get right the co-ordination of Local Link services and more regional bus services. We should use examples like Macroom to make sure the hinterland is connected in to that bus service, the timetable works and the system is seamless and integrated.

Even with the new bypass in Macroom, if we try to develop Ireland on a roads and car based transport system, and even if we restrict the numbers of people who commute, we will still reach bottlenecks when we get to the edge of the city and that will not work. The only way of managing our future development is active travel, local travel and Local Link bus services. We need this hierarchy with public transport services between large towns and cities, such as Macroom and Cork. That is the future development of public transport and transport in general in our towns and cities. This holds out the key prospect of restoring towns and bringing life back to the centre of towns. That towns will not be choked full of cars is one of the benefits of this whole process.

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