Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The school bus service has been decimated and thrown around the place in recent months. It is a thundering disgrace. Transport services for people with disabilities in the context of schools have been cast into disarray. Parents have been all over the place trying to get their children, including those with special needs, to school, and this is an ongoing problem. Further announcements that additional money will be forthcoming to take care of previous concessionary ticket holders are not washing because there is no way that Bus Éireann has the capacity to take this task on. The company does not know how to do it.

I will let the Minister of State know what is going on with public transport in Galway East. We have, for example, reduced services between Gort and Galway city and services being taken away in Kilreekil. Since 2007, there has been talk of a bus lane that would run from Claregalway into Galway city. There has been report after feasibility study after report after initiative after design and whatever else, but nothing is happening. This can be done and no land needs to be taken. It is just a matter of someone deciding to do this to ensure we can remove from the road the 30,000 cars now going through Claregalway because there is no bypass. We also have no park-and-ride facilities to service Galway city. Many people are travelling from the east of the county into the city and they are undertaking those daily journeys by car. Those people are spending, and wasting, up to 15 hours of their lives sitting in their cars weekly and putting more carbon into the atmosphere. This is not the way things should be.

Of course, there are solutions. One of the main ones is the extension of the western rail corridor to run north from Athenry to Tuam and then on to Claremorris. This would give us a rail line that would service the route from Westport to Galway and from Westport to Limerick. Ballina and Castlebar would also be connected by rail. In the Minister of State's own neck of the woods, a rail connection would run from Limerick city to Foynes Port and this would create the capacity to deal with freight in an efficient way. This endeavour has support right across this House. A feasibility study was undertaken by the eminent Professor Bradley, and it showed this project can be done. No planning permission or consents are required. If the Government decided to proceed with this proposal, it would be up and running within two and a half years.

This is the type of project we must undertake. It is shovel-ready. An example of how well it would work is that the present line running between the cities of Galway and Limerick, which was restored in 2011, is the fastest growing rail line for passenger traffic in the country. This is happening against the tide as well, in the absence of the timing and frequency of services that it had been proposed would have been put on that line. Four services are now running on that line when there should be seven. We must also ensure that we create the passing loop at Oranmore to allow more passengers to get into the heart of Galway city from the east of the county. Bus operators are doing their best, but it is very difficult when it is not possible to get a bus lane. The buses then have to sit in traffic and compete with cars, and this is a problem.

If we are fair to the private bus operators trying to do their work, and to the people in Galway East, north Mayo and further on, we will end up with a good public service that will be fit for everybody to use. Additionally, we will be able to connect the towns and cities of Ballina, Westport, Castlebar, Tuam, Athenry, Ennis, Galway and Limerick. We will also be able to have the access we require to ports in the context of the development of our offshore energy resources. If we do not do this, we are wasting our time.

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