Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)

On Second Stage I omitted to compliment the Leader of the House on the work she did on this Bill and on rail safety. She said on Second Stage that this is her Bill so I compliment Senator O'Rourke on her input into it and on bringing rail safety to its current standard.

I thank the Minister of State and his officials and Members of the House for a good debate on rail safety. I wish the Minister of State well with the Bill. I accept his comments regarding the Committee on Procedure and Privileges and the suggestion that we table amendments if we are unhappy with the situation.

I thank the Minister of State for his comments. I was in Prague last weekend with members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and it is clear that we have a long way to go in spending on public transport. Prague has an unbelievable system that fully integrates railway, metro, trams and buses. Even if €34 billion were spent here in the next two or three years, there would still be a long way to go to catch up with that city, which has a similar population to Dublin. It clearly shows that we are very backward with regard to public transport.