Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as ucht a fhreagra. The reply mentions that there could be up to five minutes' delay. The whole selling point for Adamstown and Kishoge was that we have four tracks. Some of it was part of the strategic development zone scheme, as was the Phoenix Park tunnel interconnection. To put this in context, the people currently living in Adamstown and Lucan are badly served by the train service.

In the context of the suburban routes, I receive numerous complaints with regard to overcrowding, the lack of convenient times and the inability to get to the likes of Grand Canal Dock at the weekends. We have had an announcement from Iarnród Éireann that services along some routes, including those servicing Adamstown and Kishoge, will be curtailed up until October. While I have been told in meetings with the NTA that there will be additional carriages put on, those carriages will be taken from improvements to the northern line. They will be second-hand carriages. The roll-out of the DART+ South West could be in 2027 or 2028.

The overall train service is poor. Adamstown had a designation of no more than 1.25 car spaces per house. The whole idea of Adamstown is to encourage public transport and active travel. In this context, it makes absolute sense for Adamstown to be an intercity hub to go to other areas. It is worth trying at peak times. Put on one stop-off to Galway, mar shampla, or Cork and see how it works and see whether that increases the number of people using the train service overall. It only makes sense to increase the journey time if you are actually increasing the number of people using the service. I take that point. It needs to be pushed and tried out.

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