Fergal Browne (Fine Gael)

I ask that the Minister for Transport come to the House to explain what exactly the taxpayers and commuters are getting when he speaks about buying out the toll bridge? It appears to me they are being charged on the double, having been ripped off for many years. To put this in context and given that he intends to hand over €620 million, yesterday the Carlow-Dublin train service was overcrowded. On the return journey at 4.20 p.m. or 4.30 p.m., the train was so crowded that people were turned back and had to wait an extra two hours to get a train. That is the reality of the public train service. I appreciate there are more trains on the Waterford-Dublin line than in the past but there has not been a corresponding upgrading of the quality and number of carriages and there are no catering facilities on some of the services.

The original bypass earmarked for Carlow 20 years ago is now the outer relief road because the bypass was never built. We are now planning to build an outer relief road instead. Some of the money could be put to that use. This is the same Minister who presided over the electronic voting fiasco, the airport authorities debt-ridden——