Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the amendment and I fully share the Minister of State's appreciation of its importance. It is one illustration that the Government is serious about the Transport 21 programme which will require a large amount of investment. As a straw in the wind I saw an advertisement in a newspaper yesterday to do with a public consultation on the extension of the Luas line at Cherrywood. Within a month's time we will have the new railway timetable which will contain substantial progress which is of great interest to people in Tipperary on the hourly Cork-Dublin railway service. We are talking about a vastly increased undertaking where traffic will be way above the levels of 20 years ago so it is entirely appropriate that the straitjacket that was in place in the 1980s would be removed.