Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Exactly. The northern distributor road in Limerick needs to be completed as it is absolutely essential. The project has been dropped from the national development plan and that has a huge impact in terms of some of the things that have been mentioned in the motion. I refer to the problem of a large amount of traffic at both ends of the city.

A number of good points were made about cycling and now I will outline some of my frustrations. Parnell Street is a key thoroughfare in Limerick that runs along to the railway station. We have piecemeal cycle lanes and not a proper integrated network so on Parnell Street there is a row of parked cars, a cycle lane and then the road.Cycling is, therefore, hazardous because cars are constantly moving across the cycle lane to park or to leave parking spaces. That is the result of a piecemeal development. We need an integrated cycle network across our urban centres and that has not happened in Limerick. I would not want my kids to go on those cycle paths because they are not safe or secure. Until recently, although perhaps it is not the case anymore, cycling was seen as something that was nice to have but not a priority. That attitude has been reflected in the way Limerick is set up.

I want to talk about buses and trains. I acknowledge that there are many good things in this motion that we would be happy to support. The Connecting Ireland rural mobility plan that was launched yesterday mentions increasing services, which is welcome. However, I am frustrated that it refers, in many cases, to a minimum of three return trips per day. Towns near where I live, such as Castleconnell, Murroe, Caherconlish and Newport, depend on links to Limerick city and we do not have a frequent service. For large parts of the day in Castleconnell, there are three hours between a bus coming and going. I can assure the Minister of State that is not good enough. Large sections of the young population end up asking their mums and dads to bring them in and out of town because they cannot go in and out of Limerick on a bus service that only runs every three hours. Castleconnell is actually one of the better served villages, when compared to Newport and Murroe. We need increased frequency of bus services and real thought going into linking those outer villages and the centre of Limerick.

To give another example, there is a student accommodation crisis in Castletroy. If we had a proper, decent bus service, we could offer accommodation in those outlying towns, which would be a boost to those areas. It just needs common sense, but we do not have it and I do not see it being likely at the moment. I accept there is a consultation period and I, like many others, will be lobbying hard for increased bus services to villages and towns across Limerick city and county.

I will move to the issue of the forgotten Ballybrophy railway line. Small, piecemeal parcels of work have been carried out over the years, such as the upgrade to 3.5 miles of line that is currently under way. The railway line has great potential but needs investment to cut journey times. The line has the potential to serve the towns of Castleconnell, Birdhill, Nenagh, Cloughjordan, Roscrea and Ballybrophy. However, that is not happening because only two trains go out and only three trains come back per day. The journey times are incredibly slow and that is because the track has not been upgraded. We need a funding commitment from the Minister of State to complete that track. Only 8.5 miles of track needs to be upgraded to continuous welded rail. If the Minister of State did that, we could cut the journey time significantly. The good news is that the funding to do that is already in place. It is already there under the infrastructure manager multi-annual contract for the period 2020 to 2024. I am asking the Minister of State to bring down that funding early. The fact that little bits and pieces are done each year and then waiting is killing people in Castleconnell and across Limerick. It should all be done next year. I ask the Minister of State to consider bringing in a new, midday service because if we are really serious about taking people out of cars and onto public transport, there is an easy win there in getting that railway line, which is already there, up and running. It just needs a funding commitment.

Another easy win for the Minister of State would be to open the railway station in Moyross. It runs to Galway and should be opened. We need to see a spur from Shannon. Senator Kyne earlier talked about making that line a double track and that must happen. I ask the Minister of State to be ambitious for our projects and ensure we get proper balance across the western seaboard.