John O'Mahony (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his update. I note the 16% increase in funding for the Department this year, which is both welcome and necessary. We have heard all the talk about Brexit, although it has not been mentioned for a couple of weeks because of the moving of the deadline. Our connections to continental Europe and preparations at ports and so on come under the Minister's Department and are very important.

The Minister did not mention climate change in his update, but it is another major issue for the transport sector which is the biggest contributor to carbon emissions as the economy grows and expands in the recovery. Solutions need to be provided and are being prioritised in initiatives such as the roll-out of electric vehicles. There is a need for considerable investment in the provision of charging systems throughout the country, as well as for public transport.

The Minister has outlined many improvements in the Dublin area which I support, but he leaves himself open to the accusation that he speaks about Dublin all the time. I know that he acknowledged at the beginning of his contribution that rail services needed to be upgraded nationwide, but I would like to hear his comments on, or timelines for, some of the rail services to the regions. Representatives of the National Transport Authority were in my county of Mayo recently where they addressed councillors. The Minister mentioned the provision of 41 carriages, none of which will be used on the Westport line until 2022. Perhaps he can give me some updated news in that regard. There is an appetite to use more public transport services because of the acceptance of climate change. The number of passengers on the Westport line increased from 535,000 to 580,000 in 2018. There is an acceptance of the need to use public transport and there is demand for it, but we will be playing catch-up if we are not going to have extra carriages until 2022. There has been a change in the mood of the public and attitudes to climate change and the use of public transport. If we are to take advantage of it, we need to be doing more to get ahead of the curve, which is important.

I welcome the €22 million investment announced in the budget in the regional airports programme because regional airports are crucial to the economies of the regions, industry, job creation and tourism. I am conscious of this because I live within 15 miles of Ireland West Airport Knock which upgraded its main runway recently at the cost of €11 million. That is most welcome and an example of balanced development. Tourists need direct access to the regions to explore the Wild Atlantic Way and the Hidden Heartlands, as well as to take advantage of the value for money available in the regions that is not available in urban areas, Dublin in particular, because of the significant rise in the cost of hotel accommodation.

The Government increased the level of investment in sport and for the first time published the policy last year, which was welcome. The programme for Government pledges to double spending in sport in the next ten years, which is also welcome. In the same way that the use of public transport assists in dealing with climate change, investment in sport helps to keep the nation healthy, which is important. There have been many good stories in sport in recent times. I commend the Minister for the development of the campus at Abbotstown to such a high standard. It has been one of the good news stories, the jewel in the crown, as it were, for our elite athletes. The sport capital funding about which the Minister has talked is being used to provide facilities to increase the level of participation, at whatever level people are, throughout the country. In urban areas, in particular, there is a big demand for facilities. I met one of the officers of Cuala GAA Club in Dublin which fields 100 teams at all levels and owns nothing other than its clubhouse. It has leases with the local authority and so on. That will an issue for policy down the line, but we certainly have the opposite problem in rural areas where we have the facilities but not the numbers. That is an issue, of which I am conscious in the GAA, but I am sure it extends across all of the major team sports, including soccer and rugby

There are challenges in sport that the Minister has not mentioned. Like Senator Mark Daly, I attended the meeting of the Joint Committee on Tourism, Transport and Sport this morning. We have all heard about the challenges facing the FAI. The Minister has been very involved in dealing with them, but the reports have been slow, frustrating and painstaking. We all thought representatives from the FAI were to come before the committee in September, but they have not yet come before it. It is ready to receive representatives of the FAI and Sport Ireland to discuss their findings. The victims are the coaches who experienced the withdrawal of funding for programmes. I support what the Minister did in that regard, but the longer this goes on, the closer it gets to becoming impossible to restore funding until we are sure about the governance of the FAI.What is the implication for Government support for the European Championships next year, for example?

The budget allocation included €103 million for maritime safety initiatives to ensure the Irish Coast Guard can operate safely and effectively and, according to the Budget Statement, "Key priorities here will be to increase investment in safety-related training." Let us contrast that with the announcement last weekend, unless I need to be corrected, where the Coast Guard has withdrawn over an issue relating to safety equipment. Will the Minister clarify this or will the funding go some way towards solving that problem?