John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State very much. I see where he is coming from. This is an issue that has been talked about for 40 years. I did not come to the House today expecting to be told that Government is going to look at it. This has been an ongoing issue. This type of stuff with the regulations made sense before Covid-19. There has been a total sea change in Irish attitudes towards modal shift, however, particularly under this Government over the last two and a half years.

This is a good example of how what Government plans to do and what it wants to do are actually at odds in officialdom. To me, this speaks of officialdom prior to the Covid era. People do not want to sit in their cars for two hours on the motorway into Dublin anymore. They want extra opportunities to take public transport. That is why we need some sort of particular strategy to be able to look at this and highlight the fact that if a person is coming from Dunleer, he or she does not want to have to drive to Dublin. People want accessible public transport. That is why we need to take a brand new approach and a new look at this. These types of regulations, while they are important, are very much a pre-Covid concept. New things should be considered when we have such a movement towards a modal shift in getting more people on public transport.