Jerry Buttimer (Cork South-Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will respond to Deputy Wall first. As he know, Connecting Ireland's rural mobility plan has been a huge success, with 145 new or enhanced services since it began. A total of 240 towns and villages have been connected with, for example, 61 connections to healthcare facilities, 41 higher education facilities and 71 rail services. A total of 600,000 people have access to new and enhanced bus services. In Deputy Wall's county, Kildare, with his constituency being Kildare South, we have seen increased Local Link services, including between Athy and Kilkenny since December last year, the Newbridge to Dunlavin and Kilcullen route which was enhanced in May last year, and since January last year, we have seven daily return services from Naas to Carlow. I take the Deputy's point about the area of Suncroft. I will work with him and Local Link. As I said, I met Alan Dukes recently. It is a phenomenal service, providing great access for people.

Deputy Kenny raised the issue of the 215 Blarney route. It has been raised before. Passengers numbers have increased exponentially on the route. We have spoken with Bus Éireann and the NTA about it. I will talk to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, on the Deputy's behalf on that.

See this speech in context