Nicky McFadden (Fine Gael)

I will do so and I thank the Chair for the correction. I shall abide, as always, by the Chair.

It is well and good to tax people for using roads if there is a public transport system in place but, sadly, what is being provided is inadequate and insufficient. In its launch document, the Green Party called for a light rail in all major cities. I fully support this. When I was still a county councillor in Athlone, I included, in the consideration of the county development plant, an aspiration that there should be a light rail for the town of Athlone. It would be far-sighted and visionary for a local authority to include such in its development plan and thus decrease the high dependency on cars, which, as the document states, has made us so vulnerable with increasing oil prices.

This is all laudable but it is also ironic that the Green Party, a partner in Government, also stated yesterday that we are spending three times as much on roads as on public transport. Since that party has joined forces with Fianna Fáil what has their joint partnership delivered? The Green Party has been very vocal on public transport issues since its inception.

An important question is how to keep cars out of Dublin city centre. On several occasions since I was elected Senator, I have raised the matter of public transport in the midlands and, specifically concerning County Westmeath, the re-opening of the Mullingar-Athlone rail link. This was never included in Transport 21. Today the Government parties are applauding themselves on how wonderful Transport 21 is but they have not given a jot to the people of Westmeath and the midland areas.

I believe that the Mullingar-Athlone rail link should be included in Transport 21. Many Ministers for Transport and politicians representing Longford-Westmeath have paid lip service to and have made false promises concerning the delivery of this line. I believe that there is no political will to include the Mullingar-Athlone rail link in Transport 21 nor is there the will on behalf of the board of CIE to do so. This is regrettable. The line exists, no land needs to be acquired, the costs, in comparison to other projects around the country, would be very little and the benefits would be enormous.

What would the opening of the Mullingar-Athlone connection mean to the people of the midlands? It would improve access within Westmeath, complementing the national spatial strategy to which so much attention has been given, by connecting the gateway towns of Athlone, Mullingar and Tullamore. According to the Indecon report, rail infrastructure has been identified as being very important in terms of providing mobility within the region. This line would connect the people from Sligo, Longford, Mullingar and Maynooth to the west without commuters having to go to Dublin. In economic terms, the rail link would improve the accessibility of workers, shoppers, students and tourists to the labour market, to Athlone Institute of Technology, to FÁS and to various tourism attractions in Westmeath. Many worthy agencies support this, as is clear from the Indecon report, the national development plan, the national spatial strategy and the Border midland and western grouping, BMW. They say that this is a commendable proposal and they cannot all be wrong.

I ask the Minister to prioritise this rail link to keep car numbers and emissions down and to reduce stress and anxiety in people who must sit in their cars for hours trying to get in and out of Dublin. There is another option for the Minister in this regard, which is to open the railway station at Killucan. There is a superb land block there on which a park-and-ride facility could be built and people coming from Meath and north Westmeath would not find it necessary to drive into the city.

We must have the vision to include these projects in Transport 21. It is not all about Dublin, with respect to Senator Donohoe. There are other parts of the country which are neglected and public transport is as important in rural Ireland as it is in Dublin. I ask the Minister, in his new brief, to examine the re-opening of the Mullingar-Athlone rail link and the Killucan railway station.