Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the motion. I have followed the debate from my office and I must say that it has been a good debate. It is really good to see people from all sides encouraging investment in public transport and it is a positive change.

I take issue with my colleague, Senator McDowell, on one point and agree with another of his points. I am someone who is a forced owner of a car. I have two cars at home and my family does not want two cars. It is extremely costly to run them but the reality is that there is no other way to get my children back from school after study at the moment. My family does not need two cars and we should not need to have them. It is about choice. My choice would be to have one car that I could share with my partner and use to get our children in and out of Limerick. Unfortunately, we just do not have a frequent bus service at the moment.

I agree with Senator McDowell on one important point that he made that is, perhaps, uncomfortable for the Government parties. The national development plan is a wishlist and it is very clear that an awful lot of its contents will not be delivered. Perhaps we need clarity on what is and is not going to happen.

I have a parliamentary colleague, who shall remain nameless, who gets a picture of himself behind a big sign that says M20 in the newspapers maybe six or ten times a year. His party has been in power for 11 years yet we are no nearer to having an M20 than we were then.