Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for taking our debate this evening.

It is important, for both Deputy McAuliffe and me, to speak about public transport in Dublin. Last year, during a debate with the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, I called for public transport projects such as the MetroLink, the DART+ and Luas upgrades to be fast-tracked to deal with future demand and to give Dubliners an alternative to their car.

While I welcome these critical projects being included in the national development plan, NDP, it was disappointing not to see concrete timelines. Ultimately, agencies and officials take their lead from the top. I would like to see a more urgent hands-on approach to this particular issue. We need to be more ambitious when it comes to large-scale capital projects.

My colleague, Deputy McAuliffe, will deal with the MetroLink and Luas upgrades in more detail and I will focus my remarks on the NDP commitments and DART+.

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