Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for all the information. I will start with the National Transport Authority, NTA. I welcome the two buses we have in Carlow. The service has been an absolute and total success, a game changer. The disability access is absolutely excellent. We could do with more of them. I believe a review will be held shortly. We need these buses. We do not have one at our railway station, believe it or not, and we do not have one at the Graiguecullen swimming pool, which is a community pool. There are maybe five or six areas where the review needs to happen given the number of people using them, for example for college - we are now a university town - and considering the number of people queuing for these buses. I was coming up the other day and at one bus stop I met about 20 people queuing to get on the bus. I thought that was just lovely. The buses are nearly free there is such a small amount of payment. I am blown away by it. I must say "Well done" but we need to have a review of other areas that need to be looked at. The railway station is a huge issue for us. Overall, however, the buses are great.

I was at the Irish Wheelchair Association meeting a few weeks ago and a young lady came into me. She was going away for a week on holidays and she was trying to get the airport bus from Carlow to Dublin. They told her that they did not have any wheelchair accessibility on it. She had used the service previously but they told her that they had stopped it. Naturally enough she was very upset and then she had to get the train to Dublin to try to get another taxi or some transport out to the airport. It actually took her a day. She said that if she could get the airport bus from Carlow she would be at the airport in three hours as it is right to the door and accessible. I did try to help her. I put in a complaint because she was upset over it. Will the NTA tell me what its complaints process is? The person I was dealing with there was very nice but I feel the process needs to be looked at. The bus service is really good but then a young girl like that, who is a wheelchair user, is affected. It was really upsetting to me to see how upset she was because she felt that we are meant to have these services. Could the NTA witnesses look at that for me? A complaint has gone in. Has the NTA had any other complaints about a situation like that? Given the policies and awareness how does the NTA deal with something like this? How can we get it sorted so that no one else is in that position again? These are my questions to the NTA.

Now I will talk about the trains. I spoke to the witnesses previously on this. I can see all the work that is going on, and that we have all the extra carriages in Carlow, but Carlow has gotten really busy and there are two issues. It is great that we are promoting that travel and telling people to get the train, and that we must do what we can around climate issues and the environment but now people cannot get a parking space at Carlow station and many people walk from Carlow station to my office saying they could not get parking. Many are people going to hospitals and people who do not want to drive to Dublin so they are delighted to have the option of the train. The trains are excellent by the way. I have been on a few recently. The standard of the trains and the service is excellent. With Carlow railway station, however, there is not half enough parking spaces. I am aware that Carlow County Council was working on a plan to try to operate a lot of extra spaces. I am sure they have been in contact with Iarnród Éireann as well on this. We could do with a lot more spaces. I want to know about funding. Does Iarnród Éireann set aside funding for car parking spaces? People do not mind paying. It is only an issue when people are losing their hospital appointments and losing out on going to different things, which they are really upset over.

I have a bugbear that I really do not know how Iarnród Éireann could sort for me. The witnesses may be aware that in Bagenalstown - and in other smaller rural areas - Iarnród Éireann has no one there minding the station. That is my nightmare. In Bagenalstown there are two particular wheelchair users. They use the train from Bagenalstown to Carlow when they travel in to the Irish Wheelchair Association centre in Carlow - they come Carlow for their services on a scheme. The issue is the station. One must pre-pay but there are no toilet facilities. They have to go to the pub down the road to use the toilet. The whole place is locked up. They have to go online to get a ticket which does not really suit them. The man who was there manning the station was an absolute gentleman and was there for years but he was taken out of the station.

We now have a station that is not manned and has no toilets. The wheelchair users are so disheartened by this. I met with different groups and brought down the groups but it has not changed. It is not just Bagenalstown. I believe there are others as well. I was reading about all the good work that is happening in the stations. We see all the new lifts and footbridges and they are welcome. Then I read that there is going to be significant investment in the DART fleet - one of the biggest investments ever - but we are forgetting rural Ireland. Rural Ireland is there. I know people who cannot use the station because it has no toilet facilities and nobody minding it. We have to be very careful when investing money that we keep what we have. There is definitely a station in County Kilkenny that was closed down as well and I am sure there are more stations around the country that have been closed down so I am asking the witnesses today on behalf of wheelchair users, people with disabilities and people who are visually impaired and cannot go online and book a ticket to open stations to allow people to get to the station, get a ticket and have somebody there to help them on to the train. It is a significant disadvantage for people with disabilities. While I welcome the good things like our new town bus link, which is excellent and should be everywhere, I see other areas where we are falling down. Can Bagenalstown and other rural areas be looked at? This is about people with disabilities and older people who are unable to use it. It has been closed for a while. A lovely man came down and met me at Bagenalstown station about six months ago. He said: "Deputy, we've invested a lot of money in shrubs and plants and we're donating a lot of money now to make this look nice." While I welcome that, I said to him: "You're not solving my situation here." He was very nice. I told him that I welcome the funding being put into the railway station but that we need to get it opened.