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

We are talking about AI and the future of technology in the State. The reality is that while technology has moved forward in leaps and bounds in some areas, we still have large portions of our public service operating off systems that are from the last century. The bus app in Cork that is run by Bus Éireann and the NTA is one of the most unreliable and useless pieces of technology or apps that people could have on their phones. This is because instead of using real-time information, the app operates on paper-based timetables. These timetables tell us the bus on Ballyhooly Road, in my constituency, will be three minutes. It has to do four stops in rush-hour traffic. If the driver were driving a jet, they could not do it in three minutes. I checked it on Google Maps. It says it is a minimum of eight minutes, and possibly longer, and that is without any congestion. When the bus gets to the bottom of the road, the app tells people three minutes. That is not the truth. That is not the reality. Drivers cannot feed into the app, the control room in Capwell cannot feed into the app, and what we have is a bus service run by Bus Éireann and an app run by the NTA that is virtually useless.

We talk about technology. How can we genuinely talk about the future of technology when people in the second largest city in this State are using an app that belongs in the Stone Age? In 2007, Google introduced real-time information on Google Maps. Seventeen years later, we are not using it to deliver reliable information on public transport. Fixing the app will not fix the crisis in the bus service in Cork but it will at least give people the information they need to know if they will get a bus or if a bus will be there, whether a bus will be five minutes or 20 minutes or will not come at all, one of these famous ghost buses. We have a Minister of State with responsibility for digitalisation and a Minister of State with responsibility for digital transformation, and this in itself shows the issues in our public service. Some hospitals are still operating on paper files in 2025 and with the technology that is out there, and we are talking about AI. If we cannot get our hospitals, which are a vital sector, right, then this all needs to be looked at and delivered on. People need to be able to depend on their information and vulnerable services need to be updated.

I will make one final point. A Deputy spoke a minute ago about pushing data centres out to the west coast. The west coast has been without power for weeks. They cannot get people in their homes, their schools or their colleges and we have Deputies here talking about sending data centres out there.

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