Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the Seanad and look forward to working with him.

This debate is on one of my pet subjects, specialising in transport as I do because I come from east Galway where we have many transport issues. I have written them down so that I do not forget any of them. I was delighted to see that we have focused on fairer fares in this motion because if one travels one way from Athenry to Galway, it is €5.10. We are trying to take cars off the road. It is not a fair fare. We look after people in Dublin and its commuter belt but we have problems in Galway because of the capacity of our transport infrastructure, not having a road around the city and not having park-and-ride facilities.

It is difficult to believe that the gates at the railway station in Athenry are down for four hours a day because of passing trains. We have businesses locked out for four hours and ten minutes each day. There is a solution, namely, a passing loop like in Oranmore. The funding for that loop from the previous Government was welcome, but we need a passing loop in Athenry to prevent our businesses being locked out.

I wish to focus on park-and-ride hubs. While we do not have a ring road around Galway city yet, we need to put in place operational methods to support people in accessing the city while also letting the city breathe by not clogging it up. The city needs to breathe. People need to be able to travel in and out for their hospital appointments without having to leave an extra hour ahead in case they get stuck in traffic. If we had a park-and-ride facility in Gort, Athenry or Headford where people could rely on efficient and flexible public transport, it would really work. There is enough of a shoulder on the M6 to allow people to be brought in and out from Athenry and enabling that swift movement of people. My colleague and the Minister of State's colleague, Senator Kyne, spoke about how the city was choking. Most of the traffic comes from the east. Senator Curley, Senator Murphy and I have a responsibility to ensure that we propose workable solutions to the Minister of State. The park-and-ride option is a workable solution.

We are grateful to the people of Cork for sharing Bus Éireann with us when it does its daily routes from Cork to Galway. By the time the bus gets to Gort, there are approximately ten spaces left on it. By the time it gets to Ardrahan and Senator Murphy's area, there are approximately two seats left on it. By the time it gets to Kilcolgan, it is full. By the time it gets to Oranmore, there is no capacity whatsoever on it. It is an efficient, well-run and much-needed service, but we need more capacity on it. If Bus Éireann ran a double-decker or there was a change in Limerick that facilitated more capacity, it would be welcome. Running another service from Limerick is another solution. A number of young people who attend day services are dependent on the bus. Unfortunately, if they cannot get a seat on it by the time it reaches Ardrahan, they do not get to the day service.

Likewise, we do not have a PSO offering from Galway to Loughrea. In the olden days - when I say "olden days", I mean the last number of years - we used to have a PSO service from Galway to Dublin. It used to go through Craughwell, Athenry and Loughrea and then on to Aughrim and Ballinasloe. Where we have centres of education and a lack of housing, including on the routes to Limerick, Galway and Athlone, we need to look at having a PSO service where we do not have transport infrastructure or rail currently. Bus Éireann's PSO service from Cork was withdrawn a number of years ago, my sources tell me, and now we have three service providers, so do not tell me it is about competition. The NTA needs to set down the criteria for servicing our communities outside Dublin. I think that is one of them.

I wish to refer to e-charging for Local Link services. We have great Local Link services in Galway and are very pleased with them. They provide phenomenal support. One of our best providers has approximately 15 of the routes. He comes out to Portumna, which is a great hub for Local Link services. He goes to Ballinasloe and Loughrea and even across the bridge to Nenagh in Tipperary. However, he cannot go green because we do not have the three-phase electricity. It is at the Garda station. If we could connect to the three-phase electricity and put in that e-charger, he could run his green buses.