Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is significant appetite for this. There is a widespread acceptance in the city and the surrounding areas that to achieve the population growth we want in the city and the region, we cannot just keep piling more cars into the south link road and into the city centre. It will not work and it will not be able to develop in the way we want it to. Bus rapid transit is not an immediate overnight win but it is potentially a quicker win than the light rail and it can happen along the same corridors.

One point I would make on the corridors is that a lot of the main services and industries are along that east-west corridor, as well as facilities such as the hospitals and universities, but an awful lot of the population spreads north-south. The failure to look at a north-south link connecting the north side and the south side, which is a desirable objective in any event, but potentially connecting that line to populations north and south of it, is something that should have been explored in CMATS and should continue to be explored because otherwise, people in Blackpool, Douglas, Mayfield or Togher will not benefit from the advantages of this corridor.

See this speech in context