Niall Ó Brolcháin (Green Party)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, to the House and it would be remiss of me were I to fail to congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Cuffe, on his first visit to the Seanad. Unfortunately, he now has left the Chamber. In respect of smarter travel, I note that people frequently use the wonderful word "smart". We are becoming a smart nation that has a smart economy, smart grids and smarter travel. Everything is smarter these days and I hope that is true. I believe smarter travel pertains to connectivity and the ability to move from one place to the next. I refer to my journey from my home to the Seanad. I live close to Barna on the outskirts of Galway city and get up at approximately 8 a.m. As I am obliged to travel by car to the railway station, I get stuck in a traffic jam for about an hour. Although it is not far to the railway station, it is too far to walk and unfortunately cycling is not easy for me because I must bring suitcases with me for my stay in Dublin. Consequently, I drive to and park in a quite expensive car park near the railway station, board the train and come up to Dublin. On arrival, thankfully the No. 92 bus brings me directly to Leinster House, which is very useful. A positive point nowadays is that one can buy a ticket in the railway station in Galway that allows one to travel on either the Luas or the bus directly to Leinster House and such connectivity constitutes an example of smarter travel.

Similarly, it used to be the case that visitors who arrived in Galway city by train and who wished to travel on by taxi found there were no directional signs in the railway station and consequently they would not know from where to get a taxi. As a result, they were obliged to walk out or to ask a person within the station where to get a taxi. They then were obliged to take their suitcases across Eyre Square to reach the taxi rank. Thankfully, this has changed and one can now get a taxi at Eyre Square. This also is an example of smarter travel.

However, I believe there always is too great a focus on what goes on in Dublin. In common with many other Members, the Acting Chairman, Senator Ó Murchú, comes from elsewhere in the country. Such members can attest that in many parts of Ireland, smarter travel basically consists of hopping into a car because there is not much alternative. Therefore, as one discusses such wonderful types of smarter travel as bicycle lanes and bus lanes, one should keep in mind that for those with journeys of 30 km, it is not realistic for many people to travel on a bicycle on a wet day in the west. Moreover, it often is not realistic to get a bus to one's place of work because in many places no such service exists.

That said, matters are improving dramatically and I refer to a particular incident that took place during the big freeze earlier this year. I was invited to a radio debate on Newstalk, the studios of which are located in the centre of Dublin. I got the train from Galway to Dublin as usual and then got on the Luas which took me to the city centre to participate in this radio debate. However, I was amazed because two of my senatorial colleagues, who shall remain nameless and who were due to appear on that radio debate, could not attend because they were stuck. Although both were from Dublin, they got stuck where they lived and were unable to make it into the city centre. It is quite interesting that rail connectivity allowed me to get from A to B and that it was easier to get from Galway to Dublin city centre on the day of the big freeze than it was to get there from certain parts of Dublin. This was because Dublin was completely snarled up and its roads simply were not working on that day.

I also wish to refer to the western rail corridor, which definitely is part of a smarter travel initiative and I intend to refer to Senator Coffey's part of the world as well. It was a wonderful day for me when I sat with the Minister for Transport, Deputy Dempsey, and the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Deputy Cuffe, on the very first train from Limerick to Galway, as I had been campaigning for it since the previous millennium. It is great it now is possible to get a train between the second, third and fourth largest cities in the country, as one now can travel from Cork to Limerick to Galway. It is absolutely unbelievable that so doing was not possible heretofore and that successive Governments had allowed a situation to arise whereby passengers simply could not travel by rail from Galway to Limerick and onwards to Cork. Thankfully, this has been remedied although there still is much room for improvement.

Amazingly, although one was told there would not be a great take-up for peak-time travel on the western rail corridor, Iarnród Éireann has found such predictions to be incorrect. Initially, it put a two-railcar train onto the mainline service between Limerick and Galway. Unfortunately, such provision was insufficient and Iarnród Éireann was obliged to put a four-car train on to the route at peak times. Even then, the company has found that many people are obliged to stand. It is incredible that Iarnród Éireann found that demand for the service from Ennis to Limerick completely exceeded expectations. The western rail corridor has completely exceeded expectations and is an enormous success. It was quite incredible that Ireland's transport planners were so wrong in this regard, when every local person in the west knew this would be the case.

However, no sooner has this service been put in place than the abolition of the service from Rosslare to Waterford has been proposed, which is an absolutely retrograde step. I urge the Ministers to think carefully about this and to consider the possibility of the timing of the service, as opposed to simply stating the service is not working and proposing to get rid of it. One must suit people and travel is all about what people want and about providing a service that is usable by them. It is not good enough to put on a bus service after the rush hour and then expect people to use it to get into town. For example, in certain parts of Connemara, the bus services coming into Galway city do not arrive there until after work has started. As a result, there is not the same take-up of the service as there would be were the buses to run half an hour earlier. Moreover, all manner of anomalies arise in respect of school buses, in particular on foot of the catchment areas for schools, and this must be considered in the context of smarter travel.

I note the Acting Chairman has indicated that one minute remains to me. Like the Minister of State, I could speak all day on this issue. We will have to have another debate on this subject and I commend those who tabled this motion for debate.

No single bigger gain could be made in terms of smarter travel than the alleviating of traffic congestion in cities and towns throughout the country through the provision of improved and universal school bus services. The pinch point is rush hour traffic, with the large volume of vehicular traffic in most cities being the key problem. By the provision of school buses, we would reduce a great deal of traffic at rush hour in that parents would not have to drive their children to school.

In the city from where I come all the schools are located on one side of the river and all the industry is located on the other side of it. People travelling from outside the city often have to bring their children to one side of the city and then cross to the other side, which creates a traffic snarl up. If parents could put their children on a school bus, the city would not have half that traffic snarl up. The gain from such provision would be enormous.

I urge whoever will read the transcript of this debate, if anybody reads the transcripts of debates in this House, that it is important that we examine what has been done in this area in America and in other countries and that we examine the solution presented by the low hanging fruit in terms of connectivity by way of the provision of bus services to transport children and young people to and from school. If we could do that in the lifetime of this Government, smarter travel would be something we could claim to have achieved.