Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)

The Minister of State, Deputy Canney, is very welcome to the House this evening. I echo his words of good luck to Mr. Jim Meade. He has been a phenomenal CEO and has worked very well with everybody across both Houses.

I have every faith in the Minister of State to get that rail line opened from Claremorris to Athenry. He has even converted me, and I was hedging my bets for a long time with the greenway and the blueway and the railway. I am absolutely converted. It is the right thing to do. Covid showed us that. We need it. Our population needs it. We do not have the capacity in Galway to support the young people from a housing perspective, but one thing is for certain, they are getting their education in Galway. They are driving up and filling the buses. If we had a functioning railway line, it certainly would happen.

I am not leaving the people of Sligo or Donegal or anywhere else out. We are always one step short in the west because we do not have the railroad. We do not have trains coming in but we have them coming from everywhere. We are leaving the cousins off in Mayo, Donegal and Sligo. From the perspective of the youth, they have changed. They are way ahead of the curve. They are quite happy not to have a car and to use public transport, and it has been made available to them. We have encouraged them over the past number of years. However, one thing is for certain, on a Sunday night, when you have a teenager going back to college in Dublin and they cannot get a ticket, you have to drive to Limerick Junction to put them on a train to Dublin. It is not that I mind going to Limerick Junction or anywhere else like that, but there are capacity issues. There is no doubt about that whatsoever. The trains are full, the youth are using them and we need to encourage them to do that.

On safe access to our trains, something I am sure the Minister of State read in The Connacht Tribune himself over the past week was an article about bringing animals on the train. It is not that it is not something we would encourage people to do, but certainly, after the fair in Ballinasloe, there were animals brought on the train and it made a lot of the passengers quite uncomfortable. We do need to ensure passengers are safe on our trains, the Luas and the DART. As a west of Ireland Minister of State at the Cabinet table, I have every faith Deputy Canney will ensure that, when that NDP purse is opened, he opens it good and wide for the people of Galway and the west and delivers on his ambition of a railway station in Tuam and in Ballyglunin so that people will be able to access that travel option. There is no pressure whatsoever because I have complete faith he will do it. He has already put in the funding for the regeneration of the platform. It is a shovel-ready project. What we now need to do is ensure that his Department works with him to deliver it.