John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was discussing the issue of high-speed rail between the two largest cities on this island, Belfast and Dublin. There are eight direct trains now between those two cities whereas, in comparison, places in the UK involving similar distances, like Liverpool and Manchester or Edinburgh or Glasgow, have between 22 and 32 trains a day. The first train to leave Belfast is at 7 a.m. It arrives in Dublin Connolly, at 8.50 a.m. If one is leaving Dundalk at the same time, it leaves at 8 a.m. and takes 55 minutes. Any train before that time leaving Drogheda, Dundalk or Newry, for example, takes an hour and 30 minutes to arrive. The reason for this delay is that there are so many commuter trains going into Connolly Station at the same time and it does not have the proper capacity. I would like to see a significant investment in high-speed rail infrastructure on the island of Ireland because, as Senator Dooley said a couple of minutes ago, that is one of the best ways to get people out of their cars, off the roads, and on to public transport.

In the context also of the many joint infrastructure projects we want to promote both North and South, these should be at the top of our list of priorities for investment and where we need to go with high-speed rail. It is the future. In terms of rail, we have seen this with the promotion of the M1 corridor in the north east. It is not about dragging everybody into a capital city, like Dublin. It is about providing the infrastructure in order that jobs can go both ways, whether that is a person from north Dublin commuting to a job in Newry or someone commuting to a job in Drogheda or Dundalk. It is about pulling jobs and investment outside of the capital so that we are not all being sucked into it. We do that by providing proper infrastructure, including proper rail infrastructure.

These were the points I wanted to make to the Minister today. This is the way forward and I am aware that Project Ireland 2040 puts great emphasis on it but if we want to make a meaningful commitment to decreasing commuter times and to increasing capacity on trains so we do not have scenes - we do not see them at present in these Covid-19 times - of significant overcrowding where people are sitting in alleyways on trains. This is the way to go and high-speed rail has to be the future for the island of Ireland.