Results 18,881-18,900 of 31,374 for speaker:Eamon Ryan

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Light Rail Projects (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: Any development plan should, to my mind, be conditional on real certainty as to where the public transport is going to go in. We should not be developing any area or putting this into any development plan if we do not have concrete certainty around the development of public transport nodes in those areas. Otherwise, we are confining people to a future of car-based dependency, which will not...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Light Rail Projects (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: I will be engaging with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the local authorities on this issue. While I cannot give a commitment on the fast-tracking of any one project, the planning connection is what I really commit to.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Park and Ride Facilities (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: I am as frustrated as anyone with the congestion that grips Galway and that has the potential to choke the city’s social, cultural and economic development. I am acutely aware of the need to implement improvements urgently to the city’s transport network, centred on the hierarchy of pedestrian, cyclist and public transport. While the Deputy will know that I am long aware of...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Transport Infrastructure Provision (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: Again, I am in danger of agreeing with the Deputy. I will go back, if I can, to the Copenhagen example and how the Danes made it work. These are very expensive pieces of infrastructure. They are multibillion euro projects. In Copenhagen, outside the train station there is a very low-cost bicycle park which has thousands of bicycles. The surrounding community, through a ten or 15 minute...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Bus Services (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: I assure the Deputy that the Government and the NTA are actively engaged in entering into contractual arrangements for new temporary funding supports with licensed bus operators who are providing necessary public transport services. Both the NTA and my Department have been engaging directly with commercial bus operators throughout the crisis to help inform policy decisions in relation to the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Bus Services (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: I am very glad the Deputy mentioned the school transport service which is a key element in the jigsaw of coach and bus operators. The Minister of State, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, and I met a wide spectrum of operators across tourism, school transport, PSO services and others. However, primary responsibility for managing the engagement with school bus transport providers lies with the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Bus Services (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: I agree with the Deputy. On Macroom specifically, I understand that plans are afoot and quite far advanced in terms of reviewing the frequency of the Cork-Macroom service. Once there has been a restoration of some normal services after the pandemic, I will be supportive should the National Transport Authority, in consultation with regional transport systems, decide that those plans are now...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Transport Infrastructure Provision (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: I propose to take Questions Nos. 8, 21 and 30 together. I will give a general response to all three questions and I will then specifically address the MetroLink project. I am happy to go into detail on MetroLink, but I should also set out the status of some other major transport projects in the greater Dublin area and the current status of the transport strategy. There are three...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Transport Infrastructure Provision (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: I fully agree with the Deputy. We are 20 years late on this project. We started it in the late 1990s when I was on the Dublin transportation advisory committee. At the same time, the Danish city of Copenhagen was looking at a project involving a similar length of line. In the meantime, I believe Copenhagen has built three metro lines while our project is still stuck in planning. We have...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Rail Network (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: It makes more sense to focus on that rather than the Tuam commuting route, because a bus route from Tuam into Galway city would provide an equally good service. Rail freight wins the case, in my view, but we need to examine all the options.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Rail Network (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: The debate on these issues has to be reasoned and there must be an economic argument behind it. As I understand it, Iarnród Éireann has commissioned a study by AECOM to look at the future of rail freight. That will be available at the same time as we publish the JASPERS study and the EY-DKM study on the Claremorris-Athenry link. We must be real about this. At the moment, it is...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Rail Network (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: Developing those two small links would give us a national rail freight service connected to two international deepwater ports. I would go to Europe with that proposal. I would take it to the EU's climate action recovery fund and say that this proposal makes economic sense. This is a region with clean power, clean water, manufacturing expertise and two deep-sea ports that can be connected...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Bus Services (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: I have to admit a slight bias in this matter in that my mother grew up in Macroom and I spent my childhood holidays on the banks of the River Sullane visiting my grandparents. As Minister, I have responsibility for policy and overall funding in regard to public transport. However, I am not involved in the day-to-day operations of public transport. That is the responsibility of the NTA in...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Bus Services (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: One of the most significant things in the programme for Government is the towns first idea, which seeks to bring life back into the centres of towns. I am taking Macroom as an example because it is very familiar to me. It is very important that we have good, high-quality and high-frequency public transport services on services such as the Macroom to Cork route. It is also important to...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Rail Network (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: I propose to take Questions Nos. 6 and 26 together. There are important and differing views on this issue across the House. It is a critical issue and we must consider whether to reopen phases 2 and 3 of the western rail corridor. Regardless of our views on this proposal, what we all agree on is that we need to make a decision soon. On 1 July, my Department received from Iarnród...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Rail Network (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: All of those investments in public transport from Dublin make sense. They have to make sense. One cannot proceed unless one has a good business case. There needs to be the same for rail investment in the west. I have mentioned the freight issue in various meetings I have had with several Deputies. I did so because, if we try to win this project on the basis of it being a commuting...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Rail Network (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: However, if one considers the route in a wider strategic context of economic development, it is only when passenger rail services operate on the back of what is really the key strategic benefit - an industrial rail freight capability that brings employment and manufacturing to a region that has clean power, clean water and a highly skilled manufacturing workforce - that this starts to make...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Rail Network (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: The need for this is shown by the fact that we must ask certain questions. For example, are there constraints on the Ballina-Dublin-Waterford rail freight services? I believe there may be. It is this type of question that we need to answer if we are to make a business case for a national freight rail strategy. The reports and some people claim that rail freight will not work in Ireland. I...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Rail Network (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: In the wider 30-year or 40-year climate context, where will we go? Do we want large-scale manufacturing? I believe we do. We are good at it and have done it before, for example, in Asahi and Ballina. Why can we not do the same at Castlebar, Westport, Tuam, Athenry and all the other stations along that line? Tuam used to have an industrial rail freight-based system. We know it has worked...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (24 Sep 2020)

Eamon Ryan: I would appreciate if the Deputy would provide me with details of the examples he gave. If there is an eight-week delay in processing the applications for the enterprise support grant, I would be keen to know that and I would check up with the relevant authorities as to why that happened. Similarly, if there are instances where an application under the credit guarantee scheme was refused...