Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to speak about the Connecting Ireland campaign. It is the plan of the National Transport Authority, NTA, for the next five years, from 2022 to 2026. It aims to invest in new and improved public transport services for our rural areas to connect the towns and villages all across Ireland. Why do we need to see that? We need everyone's voice right now to look at what those proposed routes are and to support the routes they want to see in their areas. We need our public transport and Transport for Ireland buses to link in with our hospitals. They need to link in with our services for people who need to attend medical appointments, be they in Portiuncula University Hospital, in my hometown of Ballinasloe, or Roscommon University Hospital, and with our primary care facilities.We need our buses to also connect for our students. We have a brand-new university in Athlone, namely, the Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest, TUS. We need buses to bring our students who live within a 10 km or 20 km radius to that campus. It is the same for students who are travelling to Galway for the National University of Ireland Galway or the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, GMIT, or all of our new campuses around the country. I also would like to ask that we would have joined-up-thinking and that buses also connect with train stations. Some people in cities might laugh at this because there is such good connectivity in the cities, but we have a situation in Athlone and Ballinasloe, for example, where sometimes our coach services do not connect to our train stations. The train station is 2 km outside of the town. In Athlone, the services that are now running from Dublin to Galway are private providers such Aircoach and Citylink, and they stop in areas that are not close to the train station or the bus station in Athlone. We need joined-up- thinking.

I call on all groups to make submissions. We have the proposed routes, such as the No. 23 running from Galway, Loughrea, Ballinasloe, Moore, Summerhill, and Athlone to Dublin. We have a proposed No. A79 from Ballinasloe, Ahascragh, Mountbellew, Glenamaddy and Castlerea. A new route is being proposed from Athlone to Roscommon town, which is the No. A78, via Athleague, Ballygar, and Ballyfore with three return trips per day. We also have more frequency of existing routes. I would ask that if people would like to make submissions they should please go to www.nationaltransport.ie/connecting-ireland, and they can also email. I ask people to make their submissions before Friday, 10 December, which is the deadline.