Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State, once again, to the Chamber. The Minister of State always seems to come in just before I speak but I thank him for coming in again.

In the Minister's opening statement, he mentioned the passenger cap at Dublin Airport. While I was planning to talk about balanced regional investment and the north west, I recall speaking following St. Patrick's weekend to a hotelier here in Dublin whom was I was staying with and asking how busy the hotel was. The turnover was similar due to costs, but footfall was down 25% and the hotelier was blaming that directly on the passenger cap at Dublin Airport. I welcome the Minister's comments that he is addressing that and he hopes to have a solution shortly.

Numerous other Senators, especially from the north west, have been speaking about our rail line, but few have mentioned the rail line from Heuston to Westport and Heuston to Ballina. It is an important service. It is a service that taps into many urban areas along the way that there has been significant investment in. It is a highly utilised service as well. While I echo Senator Cosgrove's call for the catering car to be included on that service again, what I would actually like to see is additional carriages on that service. I have used the service quite regularly since I was appointed to the House and, although I book my ticket, I am not one of these people who will try to move somebody out of the seat, just in case that person is a constituent, so I have often found myself standing in between carriages for a whole journey from Dublin to Castlerea. I believe there are the numbers to justify additional carriages. Senator Duffy spoke about Hollister's investment of €80 million in Ballina. By improving the services and the experience of people using these services, we will continue to attract more investment to our areas. That is one of the matters I wanted to mention.

Knock airport has been mentioned. It is expected to have in excess of 900,000 passengers this year. Last year, it had a bumper year of 834,000 passengers. It is located in Mayo but we must not lose sight of the fact that Knock airport services Roscommon, Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal and is highly utilised. There has been great investment in the roadways around Knock airport but we need to improve public transport to it, including access by train. That is why I welcome everyone's submission with regard to the western rail corridor.

Senator Stephenson mentioned something about a long-term vision and being ambitious. We should not only be looking at Athenry to Claremorris. We should be looking further afield at Athenry to Sligo. We should also be looking at reintegrating the north west into the national rail network, that is, Dublin to Derry and Derry to Letterkenny. If my colleague, Manus Boyle, were here, I am sure Letterkenny is what he would be solely talking about. Donegal is a beautiful part of the country. I visited a railway museum in Donegal when I was utilising services there and enjoying a summer holiday, but we should not be looking at the railway network as a part of history in Donegal. We should be looking at it as a utility to access and get more people up to that particular area. Senator Blaney is here and I am sure he will mention this as well.

We need to be ambitious. We need to look at this long term. I welcome this conversation.