Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming in. I thank him also for being the first Minister for Transport to invest in rail transport in about 70 years. It has been going rapidly downhill for a long time. There had been little meaningful difference made, and I can say that as someone who has been using the train for the last 30 years to travel to Dublin, Limerick and Galway from Clare. I have been an advocate of the modal shift and lessening car use for many years. My experience has completely changed in the two and half years since the Minister took office.

Huge moves like reducing the fare for young people means we have young people taking turns buying each other tickets for the train instead of taking turns driving. I have a 23-year-old son. The 18- to 24-year-old cohort is, unfortunately, the most famous one for crashing cars. The more I see young people on trains the happier I am because they are safer. That is a really important thing. I see trains every day that are full of young people having a good time and being relaxed.

Everybody is arriving into stations less stressed than they would have been had they tried to drive. I met a colleague today who drove for years to Dublin and has just switched to taking the train. He cannot believe he did not do it years ago because sitting in traffic is so stressful. I have driven to Dublin three times in the last two and a half years and I would prefer to never do it again. I got from the Mater to Heuston Station in 12 minutes and got the train home completely stress-free. If I had driven it would have taken me about five hours, given the day I was leaving.

We cannot underestimate the value trains can bring. The Minister touched on it when he talked about how land can be redeveloped around the trains. I was talking to the chief executive, Jim Meade, another great Clare person, a few weeks ago. He was talking about the difference it makes to places like Midleton and Mallow. When we build good rail infrastructure it re-awakens the entire town around it in so many positive ways. It is so great to see this happening in Moyross, where it is badly-needed, and in Foynes.

The more people use trains the fewer car accidents we will have, there will be less traffic congestion, less air pollution and people will be less stressed in general. There are some real positives there. It is also proving to be cheaper now in many cases because, for the first time in 70 years, we had a reduction in the price of rail travel for all people and not just those aged under 24 years or who are students. People still do not realise you do not need to be a student to get 50% off as you just need to be aged under 24 years. I will keep saying that. For adults it is 20% cheaper and if you book in advance it is cheaper again.

The Leap card is something we must work on a bit more because we want it to be workable on trains as well. The other issue is around OAPs who are not great at being online trying to book tickets. I do not find the Irish Rail website the easiest to use anyway but it would be helpful if older people could book their tickets at the stations through the ticket machines that the rest of us can use. Older people have free travel passes so they are able to use the trains, but some struggle to book tickets online. Many older people have been in contact with me about that.

It is very exciting that we are to have 41 new rail carriages. When was the last time we had new rail carriages? We will have to have a big ribbon wrapped around them and have a big scissors. These carriages will be hugely important because they will allow trains, which are now bursting at the seams due to the great moves on price reduction, to be longer. We will have five-carriage trains becoming six-carriage ones, which is really positive. We will also be able to increase frequency. I know from talking to the chief executive of Irish Rail and working with the Minister that if we can make the platforms longer then we can have longer trains arriving.

Coming from the west, it is great to be able to get a train from Ennis to Galway and Ennis to Limerick. However, the frequency is definitely an issue. I hope that will be in some way resolved when these new carriages come into operation. I am also very excited about the 90 battery-electric carriages that have been ordered. They will be delivered in 2026 which, the way the years go, is not that far away at all. These electric carriages will enable us to increase the number of people getting the train from 250,000 to 650,000. Think of how many cars that will take off the road.

Car congestion is one of the biggest challenges we face. This is not just the case in cities. Every town has huge congestion issues. From Ennis to Ennistymon, every town and village with a street has traffic congestion issues and the sooner we can get people out of cars and onto trains the better. To that end, we need to push for this Connecting Ireland piece, whereby we ensure that rural buses, which have also increased, coming into stations are not arriving five minutes after the train has left. There is still a missing piece of the puzzle there and we need Irish Rail and Bus Éireann in the room together looking at timetabling. In Ennis the bus will arrive five minutes after the train has departed 16 times a day. There has been much work done. I appreciate Irish Rail is very busy in its silo and Bus Éireann is busy in its silo. The latter has been expanding its abilities for the last two and a half years thanks to increased funding. However, we now need to get both companies in the room to connect things. Then I will be able to cycle to the end of my road, get on the bus into Ennis, get on the train and head to Dublin without having to wait 45 minutes or two hours because the train has just left the station. That is a missing piece I want to see more work on.

It is not perfect, but many more stations have got new lifts and better wheelchair access. That is important not just for wheelchair users but for people with disabilities and physical ailments.

Overcrowding on the trains is a new problem but in some ways it shows how well we are doing when it comes to the pricing of trains and increasing frequencies. People might give out about it being a problem, but it is a good problem to have in that the demand is there for an increase in train capacity.

I live 17 km from the train station, as do many in rural Ireland. With the back roads I could get an e-bike into town. I will not be able to bring that on the train but I do not need to as we have bikes in Dublin. Where do we put our e-bikes so it is safe? They are not cheap; you cannot just leave them in the same place you would other bikes. We need to look at the Connecting Ireland piece and ensure safe places are provided at stations for stowing e-bikes and ordinary bikes, so people going up to Dublin for a few days can leave them to charge and will not have to worry about them. I have parked bikes at the station but have never felt very confident about it. There are five private lockers at Ennis Station but that was not instigated by Irish Rail or anybody else.

There is also a piece there around parking. If people are constantly parking and are frequent users of the train, maybe there should be something like a frequent flyer programme to reward them for using the train more and more.

I think that is everything. Overall, it is really positive. It is amazing the difference we have made in a short period of two and half years, especially given all the other things we have been dealing with, including Brexit, Covid and the war in Ukraine. We are seeing the passenger numbers increase. They have gone up by at least 15% on the Limerick to Galway route, which is positive, but we have much more to do. I mentioned ticketing, the timetables and Irish Rail's website, because I am sure somebody is getting paid well to design that. There is also the Leap card roll-out and connecting the trains and buses, which is vital. I really appreciate the work that has been done on improving rail in Ireland. The Minister is dedicated, the chief executive of Irish Rail is dedicated and the Minister's colleagues in the Department seem to be dedicated. I look forward to even more improvements in the future.