Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We will look at the various options. I will make a general point. There is bad weather today, the schools are back and offices are busier midweek than they otherwise might be. Many people will have seen that the traffic this morning was very heavy. The problem is that we do not have enough public transport. The solution to these problems is increased public transport and providing the priority for public transport. What should give us encouragement in that regard is that the public transport numbers are shooting up. There are difficulties on particular routes, and we will look at them, but the public is responding. Where we have started to introduce the BusConnects routes in Dublin, including the H-spine and the Lucan spine, the evidence is that it is working. The numbers are shooting up. It is a virtuous process we can get into. Some services in Dublin, including the Luas, are not back to the numbers they carried previously. However, around the country, metropolitan public transport is shooting up. Where we are starting to provide BusConnects routes, it is working. We will look at a problem on any route but we should not distract from what is happening, that is, a big increase in public transport.

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