Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael)

I second the amendment to the motion and welcome the Minister of State to the House. He faces huge challenges and I wish him well as he addresses them.

Smarter travel initiatives are a challenge. We are a small island but those from mainland Europe or the United States who come to Ireland find it difficult to get around. That is the sad situation in which we find ourselves, lacking an integrated public transport system of which we can be proud. In some areas we have good public transport systems but they operate in isolation and there is no planning for how they might interact with other transport agencies or the communities they are meant to serve.

Sustainable transport is a buzzword but sustainability depends on a number of factors: accessibility, interconnectivity, including integrated ticketing and the connection of physical locations, and viability in order that the public will use it. There are rail, bus, light rail, city bus and rural transport operators. That is very important in a country such as Ireland. Public transport must be attractive to entice people to use it. By that I mean that, first and foremost, it must be accessible. Main public transport facilities such as railway stations must be accessible. In addition, the various services which operate from those stations must offer timeframes to suit those most likely to use them, namely, commuters. Services must run at times that will suit people for getting to work, college or school and then home. There is no point in running services late in the morning when most commuting has already happened. Much of the time service operators, semi-State bodies in many cases, miss that fundamental point and arrange services around schedules that have been in existence for generations. They do not look to see how Ireland has changed or how the movements of the public work, in college and work schedules and in factory flexitimes. Many people work to a 24-hour shift nowadays, starting earlier than the normal 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. shifts and working for 12 hours.

I do not say the Minister will arrive at a transport system that will suit everybody but we should be looking at and analysing the volumes of people who are in most need of public transport. These basic issues of accessibility should be studied and analysed before any planning is done so that we can have the facts. Then when it comes to planning it can be done with proper information and the result will resonate with the public and entice people to use public transport.

Another area to note concerns the basic comfort levels of public transport. Much of our rolling stock and railway tracks has improved and improvements were made under Transport 21 resulting in the introduction of new carriages. However, for a long time many of the older carriages used to rumble along substandard railway tracks and only now are we starting to get to grips with those. Unless people have a pleasurable and comfortable experience travelling they will not use the service again. That must be taken into account and there must be adequate basic facilities on a train or a bus, whether toilet facilities, food service or comfort stops along the way in the case of bus transport. It is noticeable there are no rest stops on many of our motorways. I wonder where many of our public bus fleet and private bus operators will pull over for comfort or toilet stops or even for coffee because there is a large network of motorways throughout the county with little or nothing in the way of motorway service stations. That again is a basic and fundamental omission and it should be addressed in policy and by Government.

The rail issue is very important. I acknowledge the work that has been done on the western rail corridor. It is important we preserve our national railway corridors and it was a very great mistake to close some of these in the past. One I know well, the Waterford to Cork line, was closed and it would obviously be very difficult to open it again.

The Minister of State will be aware that the Rosslare to Waterford railway line is under threat at present. I have no problem saying publicly that this railway depended very much on the beet and sugar industry which is more or less gone now, as we in the south east are aware. This is a challenge, not only to Government but to the wider public and those lobbying to keep the line open. It is one of the worst railways in the country in terms of conditions and standards and is not utilised as much as it should be. Here we have a relatively low-grade railway that is not being utilised fully so why should we not turn the issue on its head, acknowledge the challenge, promote the line and develop it to maximum efficiency? We should reschedule and size the service to accommodate those most in need.

I shall give an example. The railway passes very close to Wexford town on its way to Rosslare. It could be extended very easily to the north of Wexford town where a park and ride facility could be installed. That facility could then be utilised by the people of Enniscorthy and Wexford, of whom significant numbers work or go to college in Waterford city. That is a practical example. Those people could come and park their cars early in the morning in the park and ride facility at Wexford town and use the railway to get to Waterford city.

Again, it is a matter of integrating ideas and planning and looking outside the box. However, Iarnród Éireann is taking the easy option in this instance by closing the railway and deeming it unviable rather than looking at the positive and interacting with other local authorities and agencies to see how it could build up this service, take people off the roads and make it work. That is only one example but one well worth looking at. It could be used as a model in other areas of the country to promote and encourage the public to use railway services.

That concerns the railway alone and I shall not speak more about it. However, I have put a practical proposal to the Minister of State that should be considered. He might say, as might the Minister for Transport, Deputy Dempsey, that railways are the responsibility of Iarnród Éireann. That is the case but Iarnród Éireann is a semi-State company directed by Government policy and Government policy should consider initiatives such as the one I gave in an attempt to encourage more railway use. That would be important.

Before I move away from the railway issue, I point out that I use the Waterford to Dublin line to a great extent. Accessibility is very important. However, there is not even an automatic ticket machine at Waterford railway station although it is the capital of the south east. If I book on the Internet I must go through manual procedures to get my ticket whereas if I book from Dublin I just put my credit card in the machine and my ticket comes out. Basic electronic facilities of this kind should be in all our major railway stations and it behoves Iarnród Éireann to develop them without leaving out major stations.