Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy Wall for raising this issue. I have taken a couple of Topical Issue matters from him and Athy seems to feature fairly prominently. Fair play. He is representing the place well. It is interesting that he is providing a bit of a taxi service for anybody who misses a train. That is the right thing to do. Fair play to him.

Funding and policymaking for public transport is down to the Minister of State, Deputy Séan Canney, but as the Deputy knows, the day-to-day operation is for the NTA, in conjunction with Irish Rail and so on. I reassure the Deputy that, as outlined in the programme for Government, Securing Ireland's Future, the Government is strongly committed to enhancing transportation networks and infrastructure development, and public transport plays a key role in the delivery of this goal. To support this objective, under budget 2025, the Department of Transport secured over €658 million of funding for public service obligation and TFI Local Link services, an increase from over €613 million in 2024.

This package included funding for the continuation of the various fare initiatives, such as the young adult card and the 90-minute fare until the end of 2025. Funding has also been provided to extend free child fares on public service obligation, PSO, services to include those aged five to eight years old and to support the roll-out of new and enhanced bus and rail services under programmes such as BusConnects and Connecting Ireland. As is the case with all such measures, all funding matters are being considered as part of the ongoing budget 2026 discussions.

In relation to the Dublin to Waterford line, Iarnród Éireann has informed the Department of Transport that all services on this line stop at Athy Station. I understand that there are ten weekday services daily serving Athy, Waterford and Heuston, with additional services on Fridays and Saturdays. Athy has a typically reduced Sunday offering of five services on the Waterford-Heuston line.

In 2024, 154,449 passengers boarded the train at Athy station and 117,067 alighted, for a total of 271,516 trips to or from Athy last year. larnród Éireann is working towards a strategy for enhancement of services on InterCity routes in the short to medium term. However, it must be noted that these enhancements will be subject to agreement and funding by the NTA, as well as the completion of other projects in order to release rolling stock to realise these service enhancements. To meet growing demand, larnród Éireann is deploying all available fleet during peak times. In 2024, 41 additional InterCity railcar carriages were introduced, boosting capacity on key routes, including Sligo, Galway, Westport and Belfast.

As part of DART+, two fleet orders have been placed, for 185 carriages, largely battery electric with some electric units. The first order for the purchase of 95 additional DART carriages, comprising 65 battery electric carriages and 30 electric carriages, has started arriving and is undergoing certification and safety tasting. It is intended that the new battery electric sets will be initially deployed on the northern commuter line, serving Dublin from Drogheda, which does not necessarily help Deputy Wall's situation. The point is that efforts are being made to expand services. The Minister of State, Deputy Canney, is making every effort to increase available funding. Every time that a Deputy comes in here and looks for extra public transport services, that has to be taken seriously and delivering that should be encouraged as much as possible.

It is incredible to see the demand for train services. I am noticing lately that there is more and more demand for even the big intercounty train services. We need to accommodate that. It should be a given that public transport is available. There should be situations where people have to get into their own car to pick people up. I know that Deputy Canney will take this request seriously. He is not involved in the day-to-day running but I know that he can certainly relay messages to the NTA.

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