Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the TFI bus routes. We have a new bus in Clonmel in the past six to eight months. It has been a huge success. I remember when we had not a bus and before Covid it was a private service. A lot of people worked very hard. I compliment Michael Moroney in the council and his team. It is a major success.

There is one problem, and perhaps Deputy Ó Cathasaigh would like to know this also. The bus comes from Dungarvan to Clonmel and vice versa but they will not stop, and it was an awful job getting it to stop, in Ballymacarbry but I believe that is resolved. Now it does not pass through the small village of Kilmanahan. There are people adjacent there, two of whom are disabled people, and the service will not stop there. There is acres of space. It is quite difficult also at Kilmacomma, which is a large housing estate on the outskirts of Clonmel but which is in County Waterford, so tweaking is needed to be done there. They are good services and they are being used by everyone, and the people of those rural areas are entitled to them. We cannot walk the streets in Dublin city, with the buses lined up three and four behind each other and maybe ten in places. The rural people deserve it. They pay their pay taxes as well and they deserve to have their transport. I was a board member of Ring A Link, the rural transport service, for decades, so I compliment these people as they were pioneers in this area. It is important they would have that service.

It is impossible to talk to TII. As a public representative I find the people involved are impossible to deal with. They have this kind of monologue that they are right and they will not engage. They changed the speed limits on the way into Carrick-on-Suir and outside Clonmel at Showerings. They made it faster at those two places and people are frightened to come out at the junction. We went back and appealed to TII to bring it down again, and while the speed has been brought down nationally, those in TII would not even listen. Deputy Cahill and I met with them three or four years ago with Councillor Kieran Bourke and others. We might as well have talked to the wall or to Nelson's Pillar. There was no engagement. They would not listen. We were concerned about road safety in Carrick-on-Suir, because the TII moved the higher speed limits closer to the housing estate there in Clairín, making it dangerous for people trying to exit the housing estate.

The body needs to engage and listen to the public representatives if it will not listen to the people.

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