James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Given the extraordinary scenes that took place in our airports over the weekend, it would have been important to have the Minister for Transport or the Minister of State at the Department present for this debate but, unfortunately, that is not the case. I wanted to put that on record, as my party's spokesperson on transport.

It is looking quite certain that next year, we will experience very turbulent economic times. The Government has put in place extraordinary plans to upgrade transport infrastructure throughout the country, which is important economically but even more so environmentally, particularly with regard to the investment in public transport. What is fundamentally important - it is a mistake that this was not done between 2011 and 2016 - is that funding be ring-fenced for public transport projects despite economic conditions. That is important work that needs to be done, not only nationally here but also in conjunction with the European Commission, to ensure we will give funding towards sustainable projects, such as those we are discussing during this debate, in order that projects relating to rail, BusConnects and other public transport will be protected no matter what the economic circumstances are, within the bounds of reason. That is fundamentally important to the future development of public transport infrastructure in this State.

In my constituency and in Cork North-Central, under the Cork metropolitan area transport CMAT, strategy, more than €1.4 billion is planned to be spent on our rail infrastructure. It is critical that that be carried out to get more cars off the road. Furthermore, from a sustainability point of view, the N7 is one of the busiest roads in the country and filters traffic coming in from Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Tipperary and Kilkenny all the way into Dublin. There is no concrete plan yet in place to deal with a new park-and-ride infrastructure facility such as those that are planned on other arterial routes with access to and from Dublin, and that is a disgrace. The NTA needs to grab the bull by the horns in that case and come up with some plan to keep traffic out of Dublin city. That has to be done and the fact no concrete plan is in place is very concerning.

Deputy James O'Connor: Given the extroardinary scenes that took place at Dublin Airport over the weekend, it would have been important to have the Minister for Transport or Minister of State from the Department

I have another point to make while we are discussing the airports. Along with many other Deputies, including Deputy Carey, I have worked diligently with airport management. However, when it came to getting operating expenditure funding, to help them with their operational supports, not enough funding was provided and they had to work extraordinarily hard to get access to Government and the Department on that matter. No doubt we will hear more on the public record on that tomorrow and I look forward to participating in that debate but that is a point that must be made. We must also look at the fact Dublin Airport is at capacity so now is the time for Government to put proper, concrete supports in place for flights to be diverted to Cork Airport and, in particular, Shannon Airport, which are two airports that are underserved by Government subsidies. They need to be looked at.

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