Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate all of the contributions from the Senators and I will try to reflect and respond to some of the specific issues that have been raised. Before doing that, I want to make a broader point. I was making the case earlier that we make this switch and this investment, we reopen lines, we bring back freight and, in particular, we get balanced regional development through investment in rail, and I believe that is all absolutely correct. However, we should say at the start that it is no small challenge because, for 50 or 60 years, we have invested everything in road and our entire system is based on everyone driving everywhere. It is not going to be easy to reverse that, particularly with regard to freight. I did not go into some of the complex details as to what we will have to do in the ports, the timelines we will need to get rail freight down to the quays and how there will need to be shunting yards in different parts of the country to get goods off the train and down to the local area. That is a huge change and is not without issues.

However, I keep going back to the first premise, namely, do we abandon that and just keep going with road? For so many different reasons, that would not be the correct decision. Many of these issues are very qualitative and do not fit into some of the cost-benefit analysis mentioned by Senator Dooley, but they are very real and I want to pick up on a couple of those.

First, Senator Garvey referred to safety, from which there is a huge benefit if we make this switch. We can see road accident numbers and fatalities going up again. If we switch, this will be about safety as well as connectivity.

The Senator referred to e-bikes. If we look at what is happening in other countries where they get good, frequent rail services and connect cycling infrastructure to them, why would we not move towards places like Utrecht or some such town where there are 10,000 bikes outside the railway station? The benefit is that it does not take that much space, it is not that expensive and it is very healthy. Space is an important commodity around railway stations, given what we want to do is build housing close to them and not build massive car parks.

We have a question that goes back to the more subtle arguments, and it is not just a question of whether we abandon rail. In many instances, it is about what we do with our 19th century market towns, which were often built around rail. The great benefit when we go to rail is that the station is in the middle of the town - I am trying to remember Senator Dolan's town of Ballinasloe.