Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I support BusConnects. We need bus BusConnects in Cork, but we need it to be credible. The first round of consultation was done by the NTA without traffic data, which means the routes that were drawn up did not have the data to support them, which does not make sense. As we have all said here, we must be led by data and by science. Public transport interventions should be evidence-based. They should reflect the need on the ground, and they should be credible. Instead, we got proposals that were not even viable and that caused huge concern among communities. Even the NTA possibly agrees with this because there have been huge changes to the original plan compared with the plan we are looking at now. This creates an imbalance of power between communities and the authority.

Communities in places such as Mayfield, Ballyphehane, Knocknaheeny and Bishopstown do not have the same resources as the NTA but they have local knowledge on the ground that we need to include in the plan.

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