Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport will be here shortly, so I will not anticipate the debate.The report on the condition of our rail network was before Cabinet yesterday and was also disgracefully leaked beforehand. The report is very worrying, particularly for those who live in rural Ireland and the remoter parts of the country. I understand comments were made on this before I came into the House. It will be another real blow to rural Ireland if we cannot support and maintain the basic rail infrastructure that has been in place since Victorian times. It looks as if no rail line is making money apart from Dublin to Cork and, possibly, Dublin to Limerick, with all the branch lines in serious trouble. Anyone who uses the train regularly will have known for some time that people are just not using the rail network. There are many reasons for that - some quite positive and some quite negative. We will have a chance to tease these issues out with the Minister shortly.

I have been going to the theatre a bit lately, for the good of my health, and I was at two productions in the past week, "The Kings of the Kilburn High Road" in the Gaiety and a new play by Frank McGuinness in the Abbey, "Donegal". The state of Irish drama and theatre is fantastic at the moment and there are some great productions. I call for a debate with the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Heather Humphreys, on the role theatre and the arts generally can play in cultural revival and the revival of tourism in Ireland. Perhaps the Leader would facilitate this as it is a positive story.