Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)

For the information of the House, while Wicklow can be considered the youngest county or the last county to be created in 1606, when it comes to the investment in public transport infrastructure, we are definitely the last county to be considered. I look on with a bit of jealousy as the Deputy Leader sits there, because when it comes to the national rail review, I hear discussions about four-track services, increases to treble-track or double-track services and new stations in counties around Dublin, while in Wicklow, nothing is done to the single-track service it has today. We were promised that the DART service to Wicklow town would be in place by 2023-24, which then became 2028 and has lately become 2030.

In the meantime, we are looking at M11 congestion that happens every evening and morning, and while a major plan had been put in place for the upgrade from junction 4 to junction 14, which had gone to the preferred route stage, that was then pulled by the Minister in previous Government and replaced by the N11-M11 bus priority corridor, which is causing untold concerns, specifically in Bray with regard to the closure of the Herbert Road junction, but which will serve no purpose for the long-term future of transportation to Wicklow. For the information of the House, Wicklow has the last single carriageway coming into Dublin city centre, which is the N81.Proposals to improve that have been shelved. When it comes to the bus service, we will not even go there. There is no capacity on some buses. We have a completely unreliable service. Wicklow has been forgotten when it comes to investment in transport. We need to address that deficit if we are going to grow in a sustainable manner.