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

I greatly appreciate the opportunity to contribute to this timely and important debate. I will not dwell too long on the absolutely farcical scenes going on in Dublin Airport at the moment, but I will reiterate every comment made by my colleague, Deputy O'Donnell, earlier in this debate and throughout the week in his role as chairperson of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications. I am happy to leave it there. We all know that what is happening is completely unsustainable. There needs to be a swift and sustainable resolution. The powers that be at Dublin Airport who have allowed this to occur must be answerable to the Government and to the Oireachtas.

There are three areas I would like to focus on, which are relatively positive areas on which we should be able to find some agreement. I really welcome that we have had the first decrease in public transport fares in 75 years. This is extremely welcome. I absolutely welcome that this is scheduled to go through 2022. We need real indicators to show the success of this measure in the context of uptake in the use of public transport. If possible, perhaps this is something that should go right into 2023 also.

There are two other areas I wish to raise specifically, which will not be unfamiliar to the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, given that we represent neighbouring constituencies. The first is in relation to Luas capacity. Many of the problems faced by the Luas, and especially the green line, have been masked by the pandemic and by the welcome shift towards working remotely and will be masked by the fact that secondary schools are currently breaking up, and third level institutions have already broken up, for the summer. It cannot be avoided, however, that come September we once again will see the Luas at absolute peak capacity throughout the green line. Across my constituency, at the stops at Glencairn, Leopardstown Valley, or Ballyogan, people are prepared to take the Luas coming out of town towards Brides Glen and Cherrywood, to try to get a Luas back into town, such is the issue around timetabling, capacity and congestion. The Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, knows as well as I do that there are upwards of 5,000 new homes about to come on stream along that line on Ballyogan Road, in Cherrywood, in Glenamuck Road and in Enniskerry Road, and across Stepaside and Carrickmines. The need to genuinely look at increasing the capacity on the Luas is vitally important.

The last area of transportation and mobility I will speak on is the old reliable, which is Dublin Bus. The whole point of encouraging people to get onto Dublin Bus and use it more often is not just about frequency and fares: it is also about ensuring timetables that work around the needs of the vast majority of people who take those buses. I will give the Minister of State two examples of the No. 47 and the No. 44 buses that start out in Stepaside or Enniskerry. These routes serve many schools and businesses, along with St. Vincent's hospitals and the city centre. Those timetables are simply not working for the vast majority of people, and particularly those secondary school children in that area of Stepaside, Sandyford or Leopardstown. They simply do not have a bus available for them to get into school in adequate time. I ask the Minister of State to speak with Dublin Bus to raise this issue.

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