Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)

I thank the Minister of State for coming into the Chamber this evening and the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this very important topic. I want to talk about services in my home town of Athy in Kildare South. The population of Athy, in the recent census, was over 11,000 people. That is a growth of 82% since the 2002 census. Every morning, almost 50% of the working population of the town leaves it to avail of work elsewhere. That is a figure that grows year on year as more and more families make the town their home.

We have a wonderful train station. Considerable work has been done by Irish Rail on the train station, particularly around access, over the last number of months and that will benefit a lot of people. The problem we have in the town is that the 12 services that are there each morning are full, and a lot of people are finding it more and more difficult to avail of train times and get a seat on the trains that are there. In Kildare town, which is just a bit further up the track and has a couple of hundred fewer people than the town of Athy, there are 38 services per day versus the 12 that operate from Athy.

I have raised this with the Minister, who has sent that request on to Irish Rail, which has come back to me. In its reply, it said Iarnród Éireann aspires to increase the frequency of intercity services across the network over the coming years, including the Waterford-Dublin Heuston route, which includes the town of Athy. It went on to say that as the new DART+ fleet enters service in the greater Dublin area in 2027, this will free up intercity and commuter carriages for use elsewhere on the network, and that including any necessary infrastructure works, the precise order of the introduction of extra services will be subject to demand and the approval of the NTA.

Since I received that letter, we have launched a petition in Athy. As I speak to the Minister of State this evening, there are almost 4,000 signatures on that petition. It is 3,867, to be precise. They are from people who live in Athy and the greater Athy area and use the train service day in, day out but have problems with it. They are confined to hours they can work in Dublin, Newbridge, Naas and other places where they may get work. That is causing a serious problem for the social infrastructure of the town. There are also a lot of students who, unfortunately, cannot get accommodation in the colleges in Dublin and are still living at home in Athy. They are also suffering because of the times and restrictions in times that are on the line at the moment, so much so that a lot of them, myself included, will get a phone call late at night asking them to go to Kildare or Portlaoise train stations to collect somebody who has either missed a train or had to stay late for whatever reason, be that work or study.

4 o’clock

I am asking the Minister for Transport to support the call by the people of Athy to include that train service, and by extension Carlow town, in additional services. What we really need is an hourly service from the town, because it is a growing town. Over 11,000 people live in the town at the moment. We need additional services. We need to ensure that a person can get a seat on the train but also that it does not discriminate against work or study for those who have chosen Athy, the great town that it is, as their place to live in.

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