Kevin Humphreys (Labour) | Oireachtas source

There must be a certain amount of public confidence all areas of processes relating to bus corridors, MetroLink and greenways. My confidence in the process was undermined when eight residents of Townsend Street were notified that their houses may be demolished to make way for a new metro station. Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, the National Transport Authority, NTA, and Dublin City Council have known that for quite a considerable amount of time but only due to investigations and questions asked that I asked did the NTA tell me on Friday morning that those residents were going to be informed of that by way of a type of dawn raid, as letters were put through their letter boxes telling them they may be losing their homes.

The TII and Dublin City Council is to meet those residents next week but it has created a significant amount of distress for the families and individuals involved and the amount of time it took to inform those residents has also undermined public confidence. That delay in informing them prevented those families making a submission to the earlier stages of MetroLink. I am extremely disappointed in the manner this has been handled and I ask the Minister to investigate why it happened.Is it only because it is an inner city community that they were ignored? It seems to have been widely known in the three organisations that these homes would be demolished yet no conversation was held with the particular families.

I will move on to College Gate because my time is restricted. College Gate is the apartment block that has to be demolished in connection with building the station, along with a public facility, namely, Markievicz swimming pool, though I accept the NTA and TII are trying to find an alternative location in which to build a swimming pool. It is important that community facilities be maintained in the city centre. The proposals for Tara Street and the MetroLink were published online. One of the reasons they cannot move the station to an alternative route is a main trunk sewer and the possible damage that would be done by tunnelling underneath the sewer. The sewer has been relined and has probably been there since before the foundation of the State so it probably needs to be replaced in any case, and this should be considered as part of the project. It would open up an opportunity to relocate the station without the destruction of College Gate apartment block. I urge the Minister to have a conversation with his officials on this proposal and to look at this aspect of the project again.

The alternative proposal to MetroLink is to tunnel up to and underneath Ranelagh to provide a train park. I would like some reassurance that this is not just an effort to sideline the issue until after the next general election at the request of several Government Deputies, only for the initial proposal to follow after the election. The NTA has indicated that it wants to go on further and that, perhaps, it will build the line in 20 years. As I said to the assistant CEO, I did not know that "perhaps" was a technical term. I would like much more detailed information on this.

The reimagining and the reorganisation of our buses are important and BusConnects affects more than just Dublin. It affects several other cities and towns and there need to be full disclosure and information on this. Many routes and corridors are being planned on the basis of CSO figures for origin destinations and on how people travel. I would like the information held by the NTA to be published so that we can get a better understanding of the plans. My understanding is that the authority has mined the latest census and carried out an in-depth analysis of origin destinations and mode of transport. It is important to have this information to enable us to understand the routes and the corridors that are planned and I would greatly appreciate it if it was made available. We could then have a positive input into it. We have to reorganise public transport in our major urban areas to serve the majority of citizens. As the Minister said, it will be difficult.

As regards improvements that impact on climate change, small steps can sometimes generate confidence that a Government is going in the right direction and in this context I welcome the Minister's commitment to cycling and pedestrians. Pedestrians often lose out and I hereby restate my commitment to them. I also ask him to examine the possibility of encouraging taxi divers to convert to EVs, following several European and American cities which have given a commitment that their taxi services will be electrified by 2023. We have an opportunity to make a similar commitment and to assist drivers to convert. It would act as a public information medium to show citizens how efficient electric vehicles are. In 2018, there were a total of 9,084 taxi licences in Dublin and 1,163 in Cork, 520 in Galway and 399 in Limerick. Momentum Dynamics has constructed wireless charging infrastructure for buses and taxis and many European cities have taken this on board. There is an opportunity for Ireland to show a little bit of leadership by being first adapters. This infrastructure is more efficient and less polluting. It allows taxis to charge at waiting stations at airports, train stations and hotels where a wireless connection has been constructed to allow cars to recharge and have a far greater range.

In 2004, Councillor Andrew Montague proposed the public bike scheme for Dublin, which the Minister will acknowledge has been successful, and he announced its expansion to Waterford. At the moment, local authorities depend on public advertisement and their own resources. Last year, 4.4 million journeys were taken on public bikes across Ireland, which is welcome, and they are now part of our national transport infrastructure. Several people now come into Dublin by train, pick up a Dublin bike and commute for the rest of their journey around the city. We cannot continue to ask local authorities to carry the full cost of this. Will the Minister recognise that the free bike schemes are a form of public transport when considering subsidies to public transport? I ask him to consider a small subvention to local authorities to help them maintain and increase the free bike schemes around our city.

Much of the discussion has concentrated on the Dublin area but I recognise the contribution Irish Rail has made to emissions nationwide, with a 36% decrease. Irish Rail has a long history of developing infrastructure on time and within budget. It looks like there will be a delay to BusConnects and the metro system. In that context, I ask the Minister to look at re-profiling the Department's spend to assist Irish Rail to put in electric infrastructure across the country. There is a lead time of between three and four years for fully electric trains and a commitment to the electrification of routes. If we started to order electric trains now, we could electrify parts of our lines for those developments.

I also ask the Minister to consider investment in double-tracking the Galway to Athenry line as a priority, and to consider a second platform for Oranmore, which is important. Cork needs seven new stations to support its development, including park and ride sites, while the Kent Station investment-----