Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is quite a large population in the area when looking beyond the immediacy of both of those villages. There is significant demand for this service. This service, pre-Covid, was Ireland's fastest growing railway line in terms of usage, edging close to 600,000 in late 2019.

One of the two factors that I suppose deters some people from using it is the line speed. There are commuter trains on this. They do not have Wi-Fi. They are rather slow. If people get in their car, they can get from Limerick to Ennis far quicker than the train will get them there. Line speed is a factor here. People would like to see intercity trains, acknowledging that this is Limerick to Galway and merits something better than a commuter-style train.

Of course, the other big important issue there would be Ballycar, which is a section of the line that frequently floods. That has been spoken about quite a lot. Could the Minister give any positive indication that something will happen with that in alleviating that flooding problem? Too often, that keeps the train off the line and then no one can travel on it.

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