Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State sincerely for that comprehensive response. I appreciate the many efforts and initiatives being taken by this Government with regard to public transport provision across the State but particularly in the Dublin region.

Having engaged, or attempted to engage, with the Minister for Transport via parliamentary questions, letters and other means, I fully appreciate the responsibilities of the Department and Government are related to policy and funding as opposed to operations, which is with the National Transport Authority, NTA.

The policy, however, must fundamentally be about serving the public and anticipating difficulties. The funding, therefore, must be intelligent to meet the basic commitments of public transport provision this Government has made. The Minister of State is not off the hook. This simply cannot be delegated to the NTA because these are three quite straightforward issues.

This is not the first time I have raised them in this Chamber or in the Oireachtas overall. Indeed, the Minister, Deputy Ryan, and I have had this discussion. Not only is he a former representative for the constituency but he is the current Teachta Dála for the wider Dublin area. He fundamentally understands these issues and that the policy of Government must be to see around the corner and spot the very obvious difficulties. I fundamentally welcome the Minister of State's update on the large-scale plans the Government has but we are looking for short-term solutions to short-term problems. They are very simple short-term solutions such as a tweaking of the bus service and the laying on of a night-time service, be it Luas, Dublin Bus or, indeed, in deference to my colleague, Deputy Alan Farrell, the DART.

We need to see those services provided. We need to see them in the next three weeks. Otherwise what are we going to see on St. Patrick's Day? One of the finest things this State did was the deregulation of the taxi industry. We need to look at large-scale, progressive policies that can address the issues at source.

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