Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The population of Skerries is more than 10,000 and the population of Balbriggan is nearly 30,000. The Minister of State effectively said that those commuters will be excluded from what is a very attractive scheme. They would not want to be in it if it was not going to be to their benefit. I appreciate the Minister of State being here and I thank him for the reply. However, it will not be good enough. I will read him an email I got from one of my constituents:

After two years unemployed and just getting back into the workforce for a limited number of months, I am very careful of my expenditure at the moment. I don’t know what my situation will be at the end of the year. According to their own definition, shouldn’t they have included Balbriggan and Skerries because they are within Dublin?

She cannot understand why she is being excluded and nor can I. With respect to the reply the Minister of State gave, I do not think it explains why Skerries and Balbriggan are excluded. It explains what the current position is, but we all know that because the fares mentioned are the fares we are currently paying. However, people in Skerries and Balbriggan who are excluded from the reduced fare can travel just a couple of minutes down the road, take a train in Rush and Lusk or Donabate and travel all the way to Bray, which is in County Wicklow, at the reduced rate.

I ask the Minster of State to raise my request with the Minister for Transport and impress on him the need not to let down the nearly 40,000 people in Skerries and Balbriggan, many of whom commute. These are two commuter towns. We have a significant amount of underemployment in north County Dublin. Many people have to leave the area and travel into Dublin city for work. They use the train and they want to be treated the same as people in other areas just down the train line.

See this speech in context