Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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The purpose of today's meeting is for the joint committee to discuss the Public Service Performance Report 2023. On behalf of the committee, I am very pleased to welcome the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and his officials.

I remind witnesses of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech which might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

I remind members of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against any person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I remind Members of the constitutional requirement that Members should be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a Member to participate if they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Any Member participating online via MS Teams is obliged to make it known they are on the grounds of the Leinster House complex.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I am pleased to present the public service performance report for 2023 for the Department of Transport. The report contains high-level metrics on the delivery of investment and services in each of the five expenditure programmes published in the 2023 Revised Estimates.

Looking at 2023 in its context, since 2020 there have been key shifts in investment into new policy areas, aligning with the scale of policy ambition of this Government, in delivering compact growth, improving regional accessibility and working to deliver on our climate commitments. We have developed specific strategic network plans and can measure progress against delivery of those plans. This includes flagship infrastructure programmes such as BusConnects, DART+, MetroLink, and the electric vehicle charging infrastructure strategy. We have moved from relatively low investment in active travel to designing and steadily delivering comprehensive, integrated urban and national networks with a particular focus on accessibility, with major investments, for example, connecting the North and South Quays in Waterford or Donabate and Malahide in Dublin. We have continued our investments in the national road network with several major road projects completed in the life of the Government.

We have ensured that integrated transport plans have been developed for regional cities and can now see the benefits under way with major construction works ongoing at Plunkett Station in Waterford, Kent Station in Cork and Ceannt Station in Galway, repositioning these stations as modern, connected, multi-modal transport hubs. We are steadily replacing existing ICE public transport fleets with low-emission vehicle and zero-emission vehicle fleets and have made major progress in improving and greatly enhancing public services through BusConnects and Connecting Ireland. We have made significant investments in aviation and maritime safety and security, supporting our regional airports and delivering an enhanced Coast Guard service.

Many of the metrics published reflect the progress we have made, but also highlight the downsides. Unwelcome trends include the increase in road fatalities and the slow progress in decarbonising transport networks. Although the pace of progress of major transport projects through the planning system has been slow, this too is now steadily ramping up with the Cork commuter rail project well under way and the first BusConnects corridors due to go into construction next year. As our plans develop, what we measure will evolve with those plans.

I will turn now to some of the specific metrics for 2023. I will take programme A, sustainable mobility – active travel and greenways, first. This is primarily a capital investment programme, with expenditure exceeding the budget for 2023 due to strong programme delivery. Output indicators focus on the kilometres added to the active travel and greenway networks during 2023. The National Transport Authority is broadly responsible for managing the active travel programme and Transport Infrastructure Ireland is primarily responsible for the delivery of greenway networks. Impact data for 2023 is derived primarily from the cycling and walking index and the Dublin city canal cordon count. For example, the available data in the walking and cycling index for Dublin, included in the Revised Estimates Volume, shows a measurable improvement in areas such as perceptions of safety in the period between 2019 and 2021. As of 2023, the index is available for all five cities’ metropolitan areas, which hugely expands the range of information available.

In 2023, programme B, sustainable mobility – public transport, focused on progress in public transport investment and in electrification of private transport networks. In the 2023 Revised Estimates Volume, indicators were grouped into broad categories: EV grants, EV infrastructure, public transport asset purchases, public transport infrastructure and public transport services. EV and home charging point grant demand remained strong, preceding the much-discussed dip in 2024 for EV demand. In 2023, the total number of registered EVs as well as the percentage of EVs as a share of total car sales continued to rise. Key investments in 2023 included the ongoing programme of upgrading, replacing and expanding bus and rail fleet assets. The types of impacts selected for the report show a steady rise in public transport passenger numbers as well as growth in the size of the public transport network.

Last year, programme C, road networks and road safety, broadly divided the outputs into the addition of new road infrastructure as well as the maintenance of existing infrastructure. The kilometres of new roads relate to the completion of major schemes such as the N5 Westport to Turlough scheme in County Mayo, and the N22 Baile Bhuirne to Macroom scheme in County Cork. The metrics published in the Revised Estimates Volume contain further information on the types of assets being maintained in the asset maintenance programme, for example bridges and lighting. The impacts indicate rising demand on the use of the road network, but also the area of road safety. We know from available CSO data that the number of vehicles travelling per kilometre is trending upwards, which confirms what intuitively citizens may feel as the economy and the population continue to rise steadily. The metrics highlight the concerning increase in fatalities as well as the work of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety testing for road safety influencing factors such as drug and alcohol specimens received from drivers. The metrics also measure the working of the driver vehicle and licensing service in Shannon, including the transactions processed through the national vehicle and driver file.

In programme D, metrics generally measure compliance with safety and security, which is the main focus of investment, alongside operational grants and public service obligation schemes. The impact indicators show a steady increase in passenger throughput, again reflecting the rebound over the 2021-23 period from Covid restrictions.

The metrics in programme E primarily reflect the work of the Marine Survey Office and the role of marine surveyors in ensuring the safety of marine vessels; and the work of the Coast Guard in responding to marine emergencies within its remit.

The Department of Transport also has responsibility for the collection of nearly €1 billion each year in motor tax receipts for the Exchequer. Total receipts in 2023 were €911 million. The majority of this is collected through the easy to use and highly efficient motortax.ie website run by the Department. The Department also provides the back-office IT system of the local authority motor tax offices for those choosing to pay in person. My Department continues to look for new mechanisms to improve our digital customer service offerings to citizens while not leaving anyone behind who wishes to engage with us through non-digital channels.

The examination of our programmes through the lens of the public service performance report is a welcome development as it offers a great opportunity to discuss policy, delivery and the progress on matters of concern to the committee, and to the citizens the committee represents on behalf of whom our work is undertaken. I am happy to take any questions that the committee may have and I presume my officials might be able to add to the discussion if that is appropriate.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister and we appreciate his opening remarks. I have a list of speakers, which I will vary. I call Deputy O'Rourke to kick us off.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I refer to programme A, sustainable mobility – active travel and greenways. Specifically, there has been massive State investment in active travel projects. I reference the R135 project in Ashbourne with a specific focus on value for money, oversight and delivery on time and on budget. This was a project that was initially welcomed but is now despised by the populace in the locality. It is a project that cost €6 million. It commenced in April 2022 and was due to run for 65 weeks until June 2023. The project is still ongoing. It has had a massive impact on traffic and business in the town and on people's mobility in the town. It has had an incredibly negative impact as we are told when canvassing and knocking on doors. For me, it is the perfect example of how significant projects should not be done. It has left a really sour taste in the mouth of the local community. It also has a knock-on effect. This project has essentially overrun by 100%. We do not know the cost overrun. It could be well in excess of 100% overrun but we do not know. We have asked those questions of Meath County Council and we will continue to pursue them but they say, similar to the children's hospital, there are disputes in relation to some of the issues and they are before the courts.

However, we will pursue this and find out exactly what the cost overrun was and why it happened. It also has an impact on other projects. Today, I received a response from the NTA stating that funding for an active travel project in the neighbouring town of Ratoath is not available because of construction inflation and increasing costs associated with these projects. There is frustration about that among local public representatives. It raises the question of the oversight and value for money of these projects and ensuring that contractors and local authorities ensure that projects are rolled out efficiently and there is good oversight of the spending of taxpayers’ money. Is the Minister familiar with this case, or are there other examples he wants to comment on?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I accept what Deputy O'Rourke says. I do not have detailed information about the particular project. We have something like 1,000 projects on the go at any time. They are not all of that scale, which is a significant project with a €6 million budget. I accept the concern and frustration the Deputy has reflected if there has been a significant overrun in terms of time and budget. I do not have the details on that here.

The overall impact of what we have done on the active travel programme is transformative. It has taken a number of years to scale up the capability of many local authorities to spend. In the first two or three years of this Government, while the funding was increased, a lot of it was being put into resources within councils like building up design teams, active management teams and ready-to-go project designs. There were often also significant difficulties getting projects through our planning system. That did not apply to all projects as some were section 38 projects and so on, but others required planning permission. It has taken some time to scale up the ability of local authorities to deliver on the targets we are setting in terms of kilometres of segregated cycling facilities. That is really starting to change this year. It is now increasingly focusing on delivery. As part of that we need to learn lessons. If there have been difficulties in Ashbourne in terms of not keeping to the originally planned timelines or budget - I do not have the details - we need to learn from that experience to make sure it is not repeated.

We also have an issue now because of all the good design work that has been done. We are starting to have a significant number of projects ready to go to construction. While the active travel budget of €350 million is significant, it is a real constraint and we will have to prioritise some projects over others. I will say one thing, and this will be for the next Government, in which I obviously will not be involved. At various meetings we have been pushing the initiative that we should prioritise those councils that are willing to make some of the investment choices, and particularly the difficult decisions. I do not think this can all be forced from the top down. It has to come from the bottom up from councils looking to do it themselves. Those councils really willing to spend money with the most impact should be the ones to which we direct funding. Those who are not, it is their decision if they are not really going for this, and we have to measure council performance in that regard. That is fine. It is their call, and the money will go where it is most wanted and most needed. That may also help where councils are seen to be quick and effective in spending the money. They should be the ones we make sure get access to finance in the coming five years. That will help to be one of the best checks to make sure we spend the money wisely, well and quickly.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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There is a need for the Department to ensure the NTA has an appraisal of these projects. It has a real impact. This project had €6 million allocated and a 100% overrun in terms of time. I expect it is a 100% overrun in budget as well, and maybe more. It was to be one element of a network of developments. What does the Minister imagine the response will be if the local authority comes back for the next leg of the development? People do not want to see sight nor sound of it. That is the reality, because of the negative experience. There is a need to put a framework in place to ensure these projects are monitored and evaluated, and that local authorities, and particularly developers, are held to account in this regard. There also needs to be consideration of the wider implications of such disruption in areas. I regularly meet with businesses. They say there is an impact on their incomes because of the disruption. This issue has been raised in Ashbourne and in Navan, in my own county. Is there some accommodation that can be made for loss of revenue or to properly understand the impact of delays in projects like this, and the impact they have on consumer behaviour or shoppers' habits to ensure that local businesses are not impacted? Some businesses would associate the ongoing works with significant loss in income and the potential impact on jobs and the viability of businesses. That is not something that anybody wants to see, and it needs to be factored into it. I encourage oversight of these projects. We will continue asking questions on the Ashbourne project. I have concerns about the delays with it, but also what I am sure are the associated cost overruns. I do not think that serves anybody well. We need to see these projects delivered and delivered well.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I accept that. There is significant oversight. The Department has oversight of the NTA, which is the approving authority. We do regular overviews of the broad range of projects going through. The NTA has specific oversight with the local authority at the project level. It is important to be able to measure success and accountability. I will make two other relevant points. One of the characteristics in 2022 and 2023 was high inflation. We had significant material and contractor inflation coming out of the war in Ukraine and higher energy prices leading through that inflationary period. It has thankfully come to an end, but that was quite significant. With regard to active travel, there was a period as we started to ramp up this investment where there were different sorts of solutions. People will be aware that a lot of areas had wands drilled into the road and space was segregated in that way, or there were other technical ways to create a safe space. We are starting to see an evolution in some of that. On a lot of roads now there is just a small lip to a segregated pathway - it has to be segregated - with a particular surface. The advantage, as we have learned with these solutions over the past three or four years, is that it is now turning into quite a standardised approach. The design manual for cycling infrastructure will help a lot with this. We need to standardise. That brings various benefits. It reduces the cost, but it also reduces the length of time in construction, because you have teams that are used to how they do things, and they can run down a road and deliver quickly. I do not know the specifics of the Ashbourne case, which the Deputy mentioned. I accept what he says. There may be other reasons for delays. It may not have had cost implications. You could have a gas main or some other issue. You have to wait for the gas network company to repair it and so on. The delay might not necessarily be due to a project overrun from the contractor doing the cycling provision. However, I agree that we need to work fast. In that way things are also more efficient and less expensive.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I wish the Minister well. I thank him for his engagements over this Dáil term in this committee, at the climate committee and in the Dáil Chamber. I wish him well for the future.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I thank the Deputy and I wish him well too.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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From my perspective, I first thank the Minister for the mention in his opening statement of the greenway connection from Malahide to Donabate.

It is a welcome piece of infrastructure that I am very much looking forward to. It has been in planning for quite a number of years. In fact, when I was Mayor of Fingal, it got a mention in my opening remarks because the collapse of the bridge which had happened relatively recently. It is fantastic to see projects like that. I was reared walking the byways and highways of this country with my parents who were avid walkers with a walking group called Na Coisithe, which my mother is still involved with 40 years later. I spent a huge amount of time every second Sunday down the country. These greenways mentioned by the Minister in his opening remarks and, indeed, in the public service performance report, PSPR, are very welcome.

I will touch upon a few matters with the Minister and then I will go to a couple of the points made within the document that has been circulated to members.

First, I refer to some of the statistics which the Minister has provided to us, bearing in mind that it is 2023 we are looking at, with regard to the uptake of EVs and the rolling out of the electrical vehicle charging infrastructure. As a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action, I have had regular engagements with the Minister on this issue over the years. My own local authority, that is, the four Dublin local authorities working together, published their plan recently, which is most welcome. I cannot help but feel that momentum was lost because of the length of time it took them to produce that documentation, those plans and locations. Is that a common theme across the local authorities in the productions of those reports and site identifications? Can the Minister comment on that?

My other query on EV uptake is on the rather worrying figures, or perhaps the Minister has a contrary opinion, on how we are progressing with the EV uptake in 2024. I appreciate that we are looking at 2023 but could the Minister elucidate his, or the rationale of the Department, for that reduction in uptake as a percentage of the market and whether there are regulatory barriers in Ireland that are presenting in that? Perhaps the Minister might address those points initially.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Absolutely. First, on what the Cathaoirleach has said about greenways, it is very true that their popularity meets so many different needs. We need to design greenways. I always say to TII, to which we have given the task, that it must remember that this is for local use first and foremost. The local use might be someone cycling, jogging. Its primary care might be for those going for a walk and that everyone else has to respect that local need because it has to work for everyone. Cyclists have to yield or be respectful of pedestrians but then there can be a whole range of different uses. One could go fishing on a greenway by a bank or river and it is a case of seeing them as that important architecture for local communities right across the country. That is really important.

On electric vehicles, the Cathaoirleach is correct in saying that we have seen a slowdown in 2024. That has been right across Europe but less so worldwide as in China and elsewhere, they are really taking off. In Europe, in particular however, there was a reduction in the demand in the past year compared with the previous year. There are, in my mind, a variety of different reasons for that. It is complicated. The primary reason was changes in the second-hand value of the EV market, which made people uncertain, particularly if one had a three-year leasing model where one might have to purchase the full vehicle back at the end of the year or, indeed, in selling it on. If one is uncertain at what the second-hand value is, that hinders the confidence in the purchase of new EVs.

There are separate issues. The issue of range anxiety was an issue in the public mind but in my sense, particularly in Ireland, this is one we can address for a variety of reasons. First, we actually have a widespread network of EV charging infrastructure compared with other countries. We had one of the first roll-outs of EV charging infrastructure but there is a certain concern around the ability to get access vehicles, particularly if one does not have one on one's driveway but also on having more destination charging points in other areas. We had to make a strategic decision in 2023 into the 2024 budget, where we reduced the EV grant. Some people argued that perhaps that should not have happened. I do not think that was the primary reason because in truth, the actual price of new electrical vehicles continued to fall and fell quite significantly. The reason we made that decision was not necessarily to disadvantage EVs, obviously, but was because we faced the choice of making an investment decision in the charging infrastructure and we wanted to prioritise that to overcome those range anxiety concerns. We allocated a €100 million budget to that, which is very much starting to kick in. We will start to see in the summer of next year the roll-out of the high-speed motorway charging infrastructure. We will see the roll-out to 200 sports clubs of EV infrastructure supported by the State. We are also advancing the local authority plans.

I agree with the Cathaoirleach on his assessment on the long time that has taken. Local authorities, for a variety of different reasons, have been reasonably poor. I believe that the Cathaoirleach's own local authority, Fingal County Council, was one of the better ones but it has not delivered as quickly as we would want. We are starting to see real investment beginning to take place but that was something which took longer and was more protracted than it should or could have been.

There is one other project which may help in that regard and, again, it is taking some time. We are committed to using funding from the Climate Action Fund to set up mobility hubs. We will probably take three locations, two cities and a large town, where we will put in some innovative EV charging for both bikes and cars for car sharing and bike sharing and that will complement what the local authorities are doing. That is only one of the widespread and wide variety of measures on which we are starting to spend that €100 million in respect of the charging infrastructure, as well as what the private companies are doing. I had a meeting last week with the Electric Vehicle Charging Alliance of Ireland, which represents about half a dozen companies. There is competition and there is a variety of suppliers and they were telling me that even aside from the Government-supported charging locations, that they are continuing to invest very significantly. Consequently, I believe we can overcome that.

The slowdown in EV sales is starting to taper off and we are beginning to see it rising again. When the issues of second-hand values, fleet and leasing are resolved, it will really accelerate further again.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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That is appreciated. Briefly, in the speaking time I have remaining, which is just a couple of minutes before I ask Senator Craughwell to come in, I have a suggestion. This may be the case in some of the larger post offices, but has any consideration been given to the roll-out of motor tax facilities in post offices, like a terminal-type approach? If so, could the Minister comment on that?

The other item I wanted to touch on, which is interrelated to my comments about greenways, is to note that it is 13 km each way from Malahide to Donabate and Portrane. It is connected, of course, by train with a journey time of three minutes but I would not fancy having to commute if I was not on board a train. Ironically enough, the greenway between Malahide and Donabate will probably be made use of by people commuting to work, which is actually an added benefit to that particular project.

A further item which I want to touch on if I can find it relates to some of the figures which the Minister has identified in the PSPR under programme B on sustainable mobility and public transport. Under B3, the number of grant-aided electrical vehicle home charging points installed was quite a bit under target. Could the Minister outline why that might be the case? In addition, the number of new buses and coaches delivered, all with low floors, is only 57% of target. The Minister also might touch on that. I obviously commend the reference to achieving 126% of target for new buses and coaches delivered which were zero-emissions vehicles, ZEVs. I was on one of them with the Minister a couple of years ago as part of the Committee on Environment and Climate Action.

Under subhead B3, the target for electric vehicles as a percentage of vehicle registrations, which we have touched upon, was exceeded. Unfortunately, this has not been replicated in 2024.

Finally, there are a lot of really good, positive figures in the PSPR regarding the percentage of people walking in Dublin city centre as a modal share of transport trips. In 2022, it jumped from 5.4% to 13%. Does the Minister have an indicative figure for 2024 to see whether that trend is continuing? Does he believe that leap forward will continue? I can come back in at the end.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I thank the Chair. I will ask Dr. Keith Walsh, my assistant secretary, to come in on the issue of the post offices and the licensing. Before he comes in, I will speak briefly to a number of those other issues.

With regard to Portrane to Donabate, the Deputy is right, it is lengthy and also windy and exposed. The Deputy would be surprised; electric bikes are completely changing the range in which people now see bikes as a viable solution. For a lot of people, that kind of distance is now absolutely doable as a daily commute using an electric bike. However, I agree with the Deputy. The average person is not going to be doing that length of journey, except if an electric bike is used, in which case it starts to become a viable option.

On the delivery of buses, which the Deputy mentioned under subhead B3, the timing of delivery of buses is complicated. It often runs from one year into the other. The NTA has a very specific process of assessing buses before they are accepted, and therefore it is seen as delivered. You might get buses in but they are not actually formally approved, assessed, tested and so on. The figures for 2023 include some buses that were contracted in 2022 but only arrived into service, in effect, in the following year. Similarly, by the end of 2023, a number of buses had come into the country but were not officially signed off and accepted. It is-----

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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Fluctuating.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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It takes some time. In addition, with any new technology, particularly in the depots, there is the issue of learning the lessons. We were doing it in Athlone and Summerhill. It is about how you change the entire depot around towards electrification. It is a bit like what I was saying earlier about cycling infrastructure. It takes a while to build up the experience in order that it becomes standardised. That has taken some time but it is starting to happen and it will continue to be rolled out. They are better and quicker buses.

With regard to the walking statistics, we do not have up-to-date statistics for this year. It is interesting. I outlined the introduction of new work within the Department. We announced our data analytics unit. Part of that will involve much more sophisticated use or assessment of data, not just in Dublin but in other regional cities, on modal split, journey performance and what is happening. The counting we are doing includes the likes of the canal cordon count, which people will know. It is typically done in November of each year. It measures the number of people going across the canal. Technically it is a good way of checking a particular volume of traffic, but it does not really tell you much about what is happening with transport in the city. Our data analytics unit will give a much more real-time assessment of what is happening and, in particular, what is happening before and after a piece of infrastructure is put in place in order that the impact can be measured. If a bus gate is implemented, does it-----

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I invite the Department to look at Fairview as an example because that work is almost finished. That might be a good place to start with these enhanced analytics.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I might ask Dr. Walsh to come in on licensing and post offices.

Dr. Keith Walsh:

As the Chair is probably aware, motortax.ie accounts for the vast majority of motor tax transactions, with approximately 85% of transactions in most years. The remaining 15% or so are done through the motor tax offices, which are run by the local authorities.

There have been a number of attempts through the years to look at whether other functions could be put into the post offices and motor tax was considered in that regard. Up to now, it has proven quite difficult to do because, in effect, it would probably need the post offices to have full access to the Department's IT system that runs the motor tax website. That IT system is also used by the motor tax offices. There also needs to be a printing facility for the tax discs. It has not happened so far. As the Deputy may be aware, we are planning to remove the need for paper motor tax discs over the next year or so. Once we do that, it will open up a lot more possibilities for making it easier for motor tax to be paid in other locations and through different channels.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I thank Dr. Walsh for that. The reason I mentioned it is that we had Mr. Mulvey in with regard to his ongoing membership of the board of An Post. We were having a conversation about viability, IT literacy and stuff like that. It occurred to me that it is part of that conversation. I thank Dr. Walsh for that information.

Before I pass on to Senator Craughwell, I ask the Minister to go back to my question on grant-aided EV charging points.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Sorry, I should have answered that.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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There was another question but we will go with that one. I had another but I have forgotten it.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Both the grants for new electric vehicles and home charging are largely demand-led and, therefore, it is not something we have complete control over. As I said, the figures showed slightly below what was expected but that is a function of the household decision, rather than any policy choice.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister. In fairness, I will hand over to Senator Craughwell.

Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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The Minister is welcome to the committee. We did not always have a great relationship over the last Dáil period but I have to put something on the record today. There was a discussion at the weekend among some friends of mine regarding an assessment of Ministers' performance in the previous Government or the current Government and the Minister came out on top as the person who achieved most of what he wanted to achieve while in power. I have to agree with that assessment. We did not always agree on things and we are probably not going to agree today but I thought I would start off with a softening blow rather than a tough one.

As the Minister knows, search and rescue has been a bugbear of mine for the past four or five years. It looks very much like the incoming contractor is going to miss the deadline. In fact, I think it has missed the deadline with effect from Monday of this week. I hope the State is not going to have to pick up the cost of that.

The other thing that has been brought to my attention is the age and model of aircraft that is to be used for top cover. Apparently, it has over 11,000 hours and is 12 years old. Aviators have told me it should be in the scrapyard, rather than undertaking a new life as top cover for Ireland. I know the Minister has a concern for the overall search-and-rescue system and has been committed to it but I am concerned about the top cover. I will never understand how we ended up getting helicopters that we were once told were unsuitable for the Irish situation, but we are where we are.

The Coast Guard is a wonderful organisation but it was dysfunctional. There has been a change and I can see from people on the ground that this change is beginning to filter through and people are, shall we say, more comfortable. The current top people in the Coast Guard have gone a long way to undo some of the harm that has been done to people locally. When we are all gone out of here, I would like the Department to engage with the Coast Guard, try to repair the bad feelings there are in certain parts of the country and try and bring people back into the fold. I realise the safety responsibility they have but the people who have been pushed out were all highly safety-conscious people. I would like to see that happen and I hope the Minister will endorse it.

I have one other question for the Minister regarding metro north. We had representatives of Iarnród Éireann in here some time ago and I asked them how long it would take to take a spur from Swords into Dublin Airport. They said it would take one year of planning and one year of building, which would give us access to Dublin Airport by rail from the city centre. What is the Minister's feeling on that?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I thank Senator Craughwell for his very kind words. I would like to have achieved a hell of a lot more but I very much appreciate what he said. I always felt the Senator and I had a very good relationship even though we may have differed on a variety of issues. I always enjoyed my engagement with him both at the committee and around the Houses. Where we did differ most was on the search and rescue contract. I felt the Department did a really good job in a very complex and sensitive tendering process where it had to be rigorous in how it is implemented. I stand by that. I do not have any information from the Department about any fundamental delay or difficulty. I heard what the Senator said, however, and I will follow up to make sure we are on track.

While the Senator and I disagreed on search and rescue, one area on which we agreed and on which I was disappointed we did not achieve further progress was the involvement of the Air Corps, including in the provision of top cover and some of the other services we were contracting. I was keen to see that but it was not to be. It was not a lack of political desire to see that happening but having really tested it, pushed, encouraged and cajoled, we could not get it over the line.

The Senator and I agreed - I said this publicly at the time - that we both very much encourage the Air Corps to continue to increase its role. I am a strong advocate of the commission report on future investment in the Defence Forces. We need to scale up our capability in many different areas in the defence field. Included in that should be the potential in future because these contracts will continue to rotate and so on.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I will interrupt the Minister for a moment. We had the Estimates yesterday with the Minister of State, Deputy Lawless. This might be helpful to the Senator who, of course, was not present because it was a meeting of the select committee. Mr. Doocey, if I recall correctly, and the Minister of State mentioned that there was provision within the contract with Bristow to provide SAR and that staff in the Defence Forces would have an involvement at a point in the contract. That may be helpful in addressing the Senator’s point.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Exactly. It was from that desire to see the Air Corps take on some of that role that we put a break clause into the contract after three years, I think, to allow for that possibility. That is one example. On rigour, safety is the first priority in aviation and there are so many layers. I do not have details. The Senator said the aircraft being provided for the top cover was 12 years old and had flown a certain number of miles. I am absolutely certain that cannot be at the cost of safety or capability levels. In reporting back to the Department on this, I will relate what has been said and make sure that the case is-----

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I will ask for clarity on that for the benefit of people watching. By top cover, is the Senator referring to fixed-wing aircraft or military aircraft?

Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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Fixed-wing aircraft. If a helicopter is travelling over a certain distance, the natural curve of the earth means it will lose radio communication so a rebroadcast station will be needed between the helicopter and land. For this reason, top cover goes up and has line of sight with Ireland, if you like. That is the function and the Air Corps used to fulfil that. I agree with the Minister that the Air Corps itself would say today it is not ready to do that.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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On the Coast Guard, I agree with the Senator that it is hugely important. I only realised this time in government how embedded the organisation is in communities right around our coast. I had the pleasure of visiting a number of our Coast Guard stations in the past four years. There have been difficulties in particular areas. While I agree with the Senator’s assessment, we have had major transformation of the Coast Guard and a programme is under way, including the appointment of an assistant secretary in my Department as part of that leadership team. The organisation has a very long and proud history and I am confident it will go into a very significant new phase of development.

We have been looking at metro north for 25 years or more. We should proceed with the metro. I am waiting - impatiently in a sense - for the planning decision on the metro. We need that central spine running from Lissenhall through the centre of north Dublin to the southside at Charlemont. In the future, that spine will continue to Tallaght. I was involved in Platform for Change to plan transport and land development in Dublin. That central core spine was always in all the modelling. It is absolutely critical for all the institutions, including Dublin City University, the Mater Hospital, Dublin Airport, the Rotunda Hospital, as well as O'Connell Street. It is also critical for the planning and development of the city. A high-capacity route from north to south, extending to Tallaght in time, is critical.

The argument has been rehearsed and revisited at many different times. People have been pushing the idea that we would just do a spur from the main rail line. There are various difficulties with that. It would require us to significantly four-track the rail line north of Connolly Station. It would take multibillion euro investments to make sure that running a rail service to the airport would not disadvantage commuters coming from further north. We have just seen, as the Chair will be aware, the controversy in recent weeks over changes to the timetable on the northern line.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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It is my specialist subject so be careful how you tread.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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We should avoid anything that would return all those commuters to the roads. We are going to put the first battery-electric trains into Drogheda and run them south along the northern commuter line. It would hobble the commuter and Enterprise services to provide an airport link, particularly in the absence of all those capacity improvements. We have an alternative. The decision involves not a few hundred million but multiple billions. That may be down the line but it will be a long time after the metro has been built.

Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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The Luas runs outside my door and I think the station is going to be renamed Craughwell Station. I am not sure about that one. The Luas was fantastic when it started but it is now absolute bedlam by the time the trams get to beside the ambassador's house. For example, coming in on the Luas this morning there were four Luas trams nose to tail the whole way into town.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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That illustrates why the spur to the airport will not work. It is not just about the capacity the Minister mentioned or project 4 north, to four-track that line, which we are allegedly getting in the new year. If the Senator and I are both still here, that will make for a fascinating read. It is all about capacity. There have been so many conversations about metro on radio, as I am sure the Minister knows. The big issue is capacity. Swords, with a population of 50,000 and growing, is a city.

Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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Out where I am, there is a large amount of building taking place. There are hundreds and hundreds of houses.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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The point is that Luas is great to have but it will not work for the airport or Swords.

Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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Probably not, no.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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It does not have the capacity. The northern commuter line is already jammed, as we saw and the Minister alluded to. As I said, it is my specialist subject.

Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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I will finish on this. I look forward to Eamon Ryan 3.0. Eamon Ryan 1.0 and 2.0 made their mark on the country. I am sure the Minister is moving on to something exciting and I look forward to seeing where he goes. I wish him the very best of luck and thank him.

Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for attending and for his great service over the past five years. He certainly made a difference in transport. We have had our little ups and downs but it has been a very positive period. I am not sure if the Local Link initiatives are in the Minister's area but they have made a huge difference in regional public transport. I did not think we would be able to reach such levels of service but people who never took a bus in their lives are now travelling to Sligo town from Coolaney, Ballisodare, Ballymote and Manorhamilton. Local Link is not just for student travel. It is for night-time travel and the night-time economy. We need to do an awful lot more but in the past three or four years that money has been well spent. It was a wonderful initiative and we should reflect on that. I thank the Minister.

I will move on to the Coast Guard services. I live on the Strandhill Road in Sligo and I am delighted the Coast Guard service has been retained. We were concerned that with only three areas it could be lost, but I am delighted Strandhill has been included because 12 years ago I was very involved in the initiative of bringing the air ambulance to Athlone following the closure of the Roscommon accident and emergency department. I brought three different Departments and it has been a huge success. I am aware these things have to move and be upskilled and upgraded, but that was a game-changer when it came to saving lives in rural areas such as counties Roscommon, Mayo, Galway, Sligo, Leitrim and across the island.

We talked about the greenways. Again, under the Minister’s initiatives, they have received huge amounts of funding. I think of the Sligo greenway from Charlestown to Collooney. We would love to see a railway line there as well but the greenway is progressing at pace. Down the road I would like the Minister’s views on a railway. We would like to link up eventually with the Sligo to Galway line and down to Limerick as well, with a connection to Knock airport. We are very proud of the airport. It is used incredibly well by people from the west. When I go to Westminster, I can leave my house in Sligo at 8 a.m., be on a flight at 9 a.m. and in Westminster for a meeting at 11:30 a.m. When I am asked how I got there, I say it was Ryanair and it cost me €19.99. We are very proud of the airport. Most people are going for their winter holidays. These things are happening. The greenway from Collooney to Enniskillen is progressing. We have a feasibility study on the greenway between Lough Key forest park and Carrick-on-Shannon. It will link to Drumshanbo and up to Ballinamore and Roosky. We are at a critical point where we can connect all these greenways together. What the Minister said was right. We live in a temperate climate, although unfortunately it rains a lot more in Sligo and the west than it does in Dublin, but you could be on a bike every day, or an electric scooter or bike.

I normally stay on the Navan Road and take the bus in. What the Minister has done in Dublin has been very positive. Many more people are using the cycleway north of the Liffey. We are moving to a level of scale that is very welcome. I thank the Minister for all those initiatives. Everyone is talking about the Luas and whatever, but I am more worried about the Sligo line. The train to Sligo takes three hours. I am aware there are difficulties between Mullingar and Connolly Station, but we need to try to come up with some resolution so the train can get from Sligo to Dublin in less than two hours. I would like the Minister’s views on that.

If we look at the map of Ireland, there are motorways to Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Belfast. We need to do a lot more in the north west. The Carrick-on-Shannon bypass is moving at pace. The one area we had a little disagreement was the N17 between Collooney and Charlestown and also from Roosky to Mullingar. I thank the Minister because there were issues we perhaps did not agree on, but he listened and we came up with a resolution that I think was agreeable to everyone. However, it caused a lot of confusion and anger and we need to do a little bit better when it comes to the provision of roads. It is not a Green policy and I can understand that, but where I live, people feel let down because they are looking at motorways in every other area across the island and we need to be sympathetic to that. As I said, the speed limit on the N17 between Collooney and Charlestown is 80 km/h. It is simply not good enough for a major route and I want the Minister and his officials, who do great work, to maybe take into consideration that we do not have those motorways. The Collooney to Castlebaldwin dual carriageway has been a game-changer. Every time I drive on it, it lifts my heart as I can see the scenery and things like that, but we need more of it.

I again thank the Minister for his great work. I wish him well in his deliberations and whatever he does. I think he has a few projects on line. I say well done and thank him for his great service and for his friendship.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I thank the Deputy for his friendship as well. We have always got on well. We have disagreed sometimes on various issues, but I have always found him to be most respectful and collegial.

On investment in transport, public transport and roads, maybe I will bring them together. I have a perspective looking forward, rather than back to 2023, that the country has never had a more significant budget surplus or financial resources. It is quite phenomenal we find ourselves with the likes of the Apple money and being able to invest in the Future Ireland Fund and the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund. However, even with that very significant positive situation we have compared with any of our neighbouring countries, the challenge facing the next government and the one after that is really hard choices in the transport area, because we have so many projects in development. All are valid and a very strong case can be made for them, but we will not have the funding even if we were to get all the Apple money. Even if that largesse continued, we would still have a deficit in what could be spent. It is also an issue about engineering and contracting resources. I keep coming back to the point that three or four years ago when we were starting this version of the national development plan, we were very glad to get an allocation of €35 million in this period for the NDP, but we recognised we had €100 billion in projects in development and that was before the inflation that occurred in the past two to three years and before other new projects came onstream.

One of the biggest concerns I have is I see that investment coming in Dublin with a real certainty because Dublin is ahead. Dublin has been 20 years thinking about some of these projects, like the metro and so on. That very significant funding is going to come to Dublin because a lot of the projects have come through planning. Out of the 12 BusConnects projects in Dublin, nine are through planning and I expect the metro to be through planning within months, please God. DART+ west is through planning and the north, south and south west DART+ projects are also in planning. In the neighbouring area around Dublin, we need a rail line to Navan and the extension of the DART to Wicklow. All these have rock-solid cases and will have to be developed because Dublin needs that infrastructure. However, the problem we have is if we just develop in Dublin and do not develop in Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick as well as in towns like Sligo and in the north west in particular, we will not deliver the balanced regional development we all want. That is not good for Dublin as well as everywhere else. It would just put property prices up further. On that, we are starting to play catch-up in this Government. We have delivered a lot in the form of very extensive plans for the development of metropolitan rail in Cork while in Waterford we are seeing projects already starting to be delivered, including new rail stations and there are upgrades of the railway stations in Galway and Limerick. However, that is only really scratching the surface. We need to go with BusConnects projects in each of those cities and also continue outside them.

I absolutely accept what the Deputy said at the start. Connecting Ireland has been a phenomenal success and we need to continue for the next five years to do what we have done for the past two, where every week we roll out a new or enhanced rural bus service. It is quite expensive, but it is hugely beneficial for rural development and regional balance. I could go on. The western rail corridor needs to be up there as a first priority. A rail link to Shannon is another priority, as is reopening the rail line from Wexford to Waterford. All three of those could then be part of regional metropolitan rail networks. I am only scraping the surface. Roads are needed too. We need the Carrick-on-Shannon bypass and the Virginia bypass. I agree on the N17 and the likes of prioritising the Charlestown bypass. Again, I could continue to Ballina, Foxford and all those towns where we have plans. Every time I went west in particular, I met representatives of local councils who were saying if they could only get the traffic out of Ballintubber, Ballinrobe and so on, it would transform those towns.

We should be investing in those projects quickly because we have a chance with remote working to get town life back.

The difficulty with having the election is everybody will be saying there is money for everything, that we will be able to build everything and do it quickly. That is not true. We probably need the next NDP to be part of what is a 20- or 30-year project in respect of building out this scale of new transport infrastructure. I would argue public transport needs to get priority; not only because of climate emissions though those are real, but because of the type of development it brings. It brings transport-led developments. You get new housing beside where the public transport is put in, which works very well. More than anything else, the Irish people want it. They love public transport. When a decent public transport service is provided, everyone flocks to it. The problem we have had in the past is we have not put the money into public transport. In truth, we have allowed it to wither and that needs to be reversed in the next five, ten and 20 years. I am convinced that doing that will transform the country for the better.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister very much for his service. We have known each other for a long time in different ways. He was the TD for my area for a long time and when I was a councillor in the same area, we would go to the same residents' meetings. Indeed back in the 1980s, he was the person opening the bike shop in Belfield, when bikes were hardly being talked about at all. He does not just talk the talk; he has walked the walk in that regard. I am going to touch on the public service performance report based on his program A, B, C, D, E and so on. On active travel, while we will talk about public transport in a minute, it would be beneficial if we could get people out of public transport and on to their bikes, as I travelled today and as I do on as many days as I can. The Cathaoirleach will be glad to know I cycled to the Grand Hotel in Malahide last week, which took an hour and ten minutes from the city centre. As the DART would have taken about an hour because of the connections, I decided to try it. It can be done although I am not saying I would do it every day. Those shorter journeys; certainly anything inside the canal or as far out as Goatstown, where I am based, are very doable. It is faster than the bus and the Luas. We have reduced fares considerably but it is not so much about the money. It is good for our health also. Everybody on a bike is taking a car off the road or creating another space on the Luas, which at certain times of the day, as the Minister well knows, is quite full. This is particularly the case on the green line on the south side in the area where I am from. If we can provide quality wide bike lanes where people can overtake one another, it will make cycling more viable. I am not sure about the concrete strips. I was listening to the Minister earlier and while the diverting might be okay, I note the number of times when there was a concrete strip on the gutter and where people were tripping over them and banging into them. If they are wide enough and people know they are there that is one thing, but I am not so sure the big blocky ones that were there at one stage are the right way to go. Once you are inside them you are inside them and if you are stuck behind somebody it gets very frustrating. The wider the lane the better. Where there is space to do it and it can be done it is very positive. It is about delivery, as the Minister said. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown certainly has been one of the better councils in terms of delivering cycling infrastructure. It pays off. I was cyclist number 810 this morning on the cycle counter outside Belfield. I will not give the figure but at this stage, the counter is in the hundreds of thousands this year. I remember in the 1980s, when Clonskeagh had two lanes of cars. They converged further down and that also caused problems. There is an appetite for it and the more of it we can do, the better we can maintain the bike lanes. We were talking about the capital spending on active travel earlier but I note the wands get knocked over and broken. They are at an angle or are sticking out in the wrong way. There is a maintenance issue there and while I do not know whose budget it is or whether there is a budget for it, it needs to be maintained.

The level of broken glass is something that frustrates me as I have had more punctures than I would like because of it. It happens. It could have been swept yesterday and it would happen today. There is nothing we can do about that. The more we maintain those lanes, however, the more people get out of their cars. That leaves road space for people who do need cars.

Touching on that, I will bring in road safety as part of it. We know that average-speed cameras on the N7 work. The RSA appeared before us and told us the compliance rate went from 67% to 98% in that stretch. There is much more scope in terms of technology inside people's cars. There are people who, when their children start driving, put a box in the car that monitors them and gives a report if anything goes wrong. Nothing goes wrong as they know they are being watched. We all behave better when we are being watched. There is an incentive there for the insurance industry, together with the Department. We are never going to have enough average speed cameras. By and large, as we have said before, the four risk factors for road deaths are generally young people at night on rural roads at weekends. We are never going to have average speed cameras in those areas. The Minister might reflect on the active travel end of it and on road safety. I might come back to some of the other things.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I thank the Senator. As he said, we have a long friendship through politics and beyond. I will go very local as a way of making a point. The Senator knows these roads very well as do I. If a person is coming from Goatstown, from the Goat Grill into town and is going down Goatstown Road on to Clonskeagh Road and then to Sandford Road and the junction by Eglinton Road. There are three examples to learn from that. To go back to what I said earlier, we tried different technologies. The first phase was done with the putting in of that quite significant concrete lip the Senator mentioned. I found it dangerous.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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I did too.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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It was quite tight and narrow and you could not overtake. You would be at quite a high speed going into town, as it is downhill. There were many of those wands and bollards. I thought there was a lot going on and it was not ideal. We found that out and a lesson was learned from that. If we look at the section from the mosque down to Clonskeagh Bridge, that is the design that is going to take off. The lip is quite small. A cyclist could come off it without coming off the bike.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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Agreed.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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It is a nice surface. It is wide enough and a cyclist needs width. There are a couple of pinch points where they compromised too much but by and large, it is a very good-quality lane. It is comfortable and safe and not expensive, as it is a standard surface treatment. The third piece - and we need to go on into town and to do a lot more, more quickly - to go back, I was involved in the Dublin cycling campaign 25 to 30 years ago, and I remember being at that junction at Sandford Road and Clonskeagh and at the time and it is hard to believe, there were two lanes of cars either way-----

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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That is the point I was making.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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It can only be a 9 m wide road. I remember speaking to the engineer and asking whether we could reduce it to one lane each. He said that was no problem. All we are doing with that is storing cars. They are not moving, which means there is no space for anything else. It completely killed the cycling capability. Cyclists had to go on the footpath, there was literally no space. What we need to do is reallocate space. It is not anti-car; it is creating a transport system that works. Each time we do it, we do not go back because one finds that transport flows change. What is often being changed is where the congestion is, not where the actual capacity is. Those three roads the Senator knows locally are good examples of where we need to go.

The Minister for Justice launched two new average speed cameras last week. I was very glad, as we do need much more enforcement in promoting road safety. Thankfully, there has been an improvement in the past six months. Any deaths on our roads are still completely unacceptable and the figures are still high relative to two or three years ago but in the past six months, we have started to see the numbers improve somewhat. There were 16 less lives lost this year compared with this time last year. That is not acceptable, we need to go much lower, but the figures are starting to turn. One of the reasons they have started to turn is because we have increased enforcement. Members of the Garda are doing 30 minutes of their duty rosters on road traffic police safety improvements and that is having an impact on public behaviour. Cameras also are a very significant part of that. Not solely the average speed cameras but cameras regarding the enforcement of bus lanes, speed-----

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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Red lights.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Yes. We need to ramp up and we are going to ramp up the deployment of those cameras. We can use that technology in a way where we might have a camera box but rotate the actual camera between different boxes to give the signal to improved behaviour. Cameras within vehicles have a role.

Certainly, cameras on buses are critical in tackling antisocial behaviour and in respect of any incidents involving those buses. I had a meeting with the taxi advisory committee last week at which we discussed the issue of cameras in taxis. The point I would make in this regard is the same one I would make in regard to cars. Issues arise when it comes to private vehicles in terms of how cameras are used and for what purpose. There are real privacy and other concerns.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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We might not be talking about cameras. It might be technology that monitors speed such that if a driver is doing 150 km/h, that is detected. The technology is probably available now whereby a car will know that the driver is in, for example, a 50 km/h zone. If the technology tracks the driver doing 80 km/h, a report will go to his or her insurance company setting out the behaviour.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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That is a different issue.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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The technology might monitor whether the driver is changing the radio station or whatever.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Yes, I would be able to check what my son is doing as he is driving. With that technology, having insurance options whereby good, safe driving practice is guaranteed to be rewarded-----

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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Exactly. Good behaviour should be rewarded.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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-----with better insurance premiums might be one of the ways to go.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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The Stillorgan quality bus corridor, QBC, was the first ever QBC. A change is coming on that route in December. I remember when there were three lanes of traffic on the N11, which were then funnelled into two in Donnybrook village. Now it is two lanes being funnelled into one, which is not as bad. Again, it is about taking out cars. The impact of taking a lane of cars out of Donnybrook village in 1999 was apparent to most road users at the time, and certainly most drivers, yet it works. We have seen gigantic levels of traffic on the 46A, 145 and 155 routes, the latter two of which I do not think even existed as those routes prior to the opening of the QBC. There is work to be done there. All the route numbers are changing, with the 46A route due to finish on 8 or 9 December. That will be a shock to a lot of people. These are very heavily trafficked routes. It is about communicating the changes well in order that people realise the route is not gone but is just being renamed and new routes are being introduced. A lot of the S4, S6, S8 routes and so on are quite good but not everybody may know about them. What is being done is progress but we must make sure we communicate that progress. QBCs work but only where they extend the whole way along a route. It cannot be a stop-start situation, with a little length of strip on one part before it changes at the lights. Decent QBCs work. They promote and justify higher density. However, there is work to be done in this area.

I mentioned camera monitoring of red lights. Will the Minister outline his thoughts on the establishment of a transport police force? Progress in this regard is an evolving process. The Dublin Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party group looked at this a long time ago. The response in an earlier period of this Government's term to the possibility of establishing a transport police unit was "Not really". Now it seems to be more accepted that there is scope for such an establishment, whether within An Garda Síochána, which I probably would favour, or, if it has to be, as a separate force. It should cover public transport and also perhaps road safety and road monitoring, not just for 30 minutes per day but involving people whose full-time job focuses on transport measures, all the enforcement and, in particular, antisocial behaviour. If public transport is not viewed as safe or experienced as safe, it does not get the traction we want. We know it does get traction when that issue is addressed.

In terms of bus capacity, any time I have cycled down the quays, which is much easier to do now, I see very significant numbers of people waiting for buses. That is the case pretty much all the time. I am not saying it is a bad thing; in fact, it is a good thing. However, my question is whether our transport network has enough buses to cope with the increased demand. The population has increased by 50% or thereabouts in the past 25 years from approximately 3.5 million to more than 5 million. It is a very significant jump. We have a much bigger working population, with 1 million more people in the workplace now than there were ten years ago. The increase is from about 1.8 million to 2.8 million. Have we done enough to make sure that when we ask people to use public transport, it is there for them? I am not just talking about the ghost bus issue but the need to ensure that when the bus turns up, there is a seat for most people most of the time. We do not expect that at rush hour but most people would like to be able to sit down. Everything in the public service performance report is good but we need more ambition. What is being done in this regard?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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We are talking very local here. The Senator is talking about my constituency, which I can use as an example. First, however, I go back to what he said about the Stillorgan QBC, the introduction of which I was involved in as a member of the Dublin transport advisory committee and its QBC committee at the time. The controversy around the proposal was followed by an overnight realisation that it worked dramatically for the better.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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There were people getting on buses from Foxrock who had not used a bus in 20 years.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Yes. The response went from "This is the end of the world" to "Oh my God, this is brilliant". It proved the case.

Looking at the route through the lens of today, what we have on the Stillorgan road is not good enough. Getting down to the very local, the question is about what Donnybrook village, for instance, is for. Is it a distributor road for cars into the city centre or is it a village for the local community? My view is that it is the latter. Another example is Ballsbridge village. I use it a lot as a pedestrian and cyclist. The current configuration is horrific. It is utterly dismissive of the pedestrian. The situation with timings and the ability to cross the road is awful, dangerous and completely car-dominated. The centre of Ballsbridge village should function as the centre of the village.

One of the changes that will help and benefit us is BusConnects. It will not impact on Donnybrook but it will impact on Ballsbridge. The latter is one of the three projects that are not yet through planning. It will give an opportunity to calm down the whole village and change it from being a car distributor route into the city centre to a place that facilitates high-quality public transport, cycling, walking and cars. It is not about taking the car out completely. The current situation in Ballsbridge is the same right across Dublin and in cities and towns across the country. We have allowed our urban areas to become car parks and car transport systems. That takes from the sense of place and community, from health and from efficiency because it leads to gridlock. It just does not work and it has to change. What we see at present is not good enough. BusConnects will be transformative. The projects are coming on board. Two will start next year and another two will probably get going as well. We will be building four a year. There is no reason we should not complete BusConnects in the next four years and, in so doing, really transform the city for the better. I do not see that stopping. As I said earlier, that is an absolute first priority. We got the proposals through planning. Now let us build.

It is true what the Senator said about the 46A. The words of the song are: "So I jumped on a bus to Dún Laoghaire, stoppin' off to pick up my guitar." It would sound slightly different with "I jumped on the S6".

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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Or the E2 or whatever it will be called.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I am fixated on those southern orbital routes because they are a dramatic change and provide a very good-quality service. I am sad in that I like to count the numbers as I watch buses go by. The public flocks to good public transport. I am told the routes are really taking off, with the numbers doing very well. I had a meeting with the board of Dublin Bus two weeks ago. What came out of it is that we have enough buses. We have to electrify them all and we must think about how we use our depots. Included in that, going back to Donnybrook or Ringsend, both in my constituency, is considering whether we could build over the bus stations If we have electric buses, we will not have the fumes or the same noise. There are really good continental examples. Ringsend depot is built on very valuable land beside Grand Canal Dock. We should be building above the bus depot there. We should retain the depot because it is an important part of the public infrastructure but we should get housing in at the same time. From talking to people in Dublin Bus, the critical thing will be turning around bus times more quickly. If we can give BusConnects the real priority we want to give it, then it is not the number of buses but the speed of the buses that is the key metric. Getting the speed up should be the focus rather than necessarily having to put more buses into a gridlocked system.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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On that point, I wrote to a constituent today about BusConnects. The issue of speed is absolutely critical. In Swords, the current journey time to the city centre is 71 minutes. I am not sure whether that figure is from the CSO or the Department. Without intervention, it will rise to 80 minutes. With the BusConnects projects coming on stream under the A spine, the proposal is to reduce that time to 40 minutes, which is a pretty decent time for a journey of approximately eight miles. Comparatively, the DART time is 28 or 29 minutes from nearby Malahide, with the MetroLink, when delivered, taking 25 minutes.

They are all relatively comparable but, as pointed out, in the context of those corridors that are the essential component of BusConnects, while it is great to have all these extra buses and extra capacity, improved timetabling, the cross-city, as I call them, interlinking buses and additional destinations, ultimately, they will all be on the same roads. Without that quality bus corridor, as Senator Horkan referred to, everything grinds to a halt. I am pleased to hear the Minister’s ambition that the process will be completed within a reasonable period, namely four years, or close to 2030. I make it 2028 or 2029.

To come back to the Minister before some concluding remarks in relation to MetroLink-----

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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I might come back in again.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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That is no problem. In relation to MetroLink. It is a project that does not impact just my constituency. The Minister and I have a lot in common in relation to public transport matters, one of which is Metrolink. I am a huge advocate for the delivery of that project, but there is undoubtedly extraordinary cynicism in the public domain. When I am confronted by people who say “Oh, that should have been delivered 20 years ago,” or “It was started 20 years ago,” I tell them that it was actually first mooted in 1974. There was a Forfás report in 1974 suggesting a heavy rail link from the northern commuter line. That was the first iteration. A metro or underground was suggested in 2000, or possibly during the 1990s. We are where we are, as they say. My ambition, the Minister’s and that of these Houses is to get this through planning and started as quickly as possible. In view of all the meetings the Minister has had with Dr. Sweeney and others in his Department in recent years, will he give a prediction as to when he thinks this will start and finish? If the Oireachtas committee structures are put back together in January or thereabouts, I hope we will be in a position to call in Dr. Sweeney for a conversation. He was one of a few witnesses I did not get to call in because of the relatively short period I had as Chair. Assuming all goes swimmingly with the planning application – we will take that assumption and put it in the bank – what is the Minister’s view of what will happen thereafter?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I will answer by going back to what the Cathaoirleach said that it would be very good to the BusConnects plan, the network and corridors – it is a big complex project – concluded by the end of this decade. I agree with him. For where we are now, that would be a great outcome and we should make sure it happens but that is not satisfactory because it started in 2016 or 2017, so that is 14 years to build a bus corridor network. The problem is it was a controversial project because the designs were wrong at the start. They were very much corridors over communities and not getting that sense of villages back. In fairness to the NTA, it listened and that public consultation process through three phases won over most of the public and, in my experience, and won over councillors and TDs, but by the time it is built, it is ten years later. It is 14 years to build out from end to end. That is too long. Not only it is too long in that you do not get the benefit, it is also more expensive. The benefit of public consultation is that you get the public with you and then there is a ten-year gap. That does not work. The reasons are many but our public spending code needs to be updated. That does not help in terms of the number. You need checks and you need to make sure it is good value for money and so on. That process is quite protracted. There are lots of gates involved. It is difficult process to go through. Our planning and legal systems create great uncertainty.

On the metro, being honest, I have to say that to a certain extent we do not know. First, it is not through planning yet. Second, when it gets through planning, it will then have to go through a judicial review process. That could take any length of time. I could pick examples but I do not want to because we have to be sensitive about judicial independence-----

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I accept the Minister’s point. It is outside of our control. There is also the injunction relating to or the judicial review of the airport passenger cap, which I was going to raise later. That is a good example of the courts dealing with something relatively quickly. It only took a few weeks, as far as I know. The decision was made this week. Regardless of one’s view of the move by the DAA and the airlines, I hope that is an indication that even though it is a provisional view, that matter will be dealt with by the courts or An Bord Pleanála definitively in the near future. Regardless of the planning process, perhaps park that and move to the implementation and delivery of the process. Is it still eight years? Can that be revised? Has Dr. Sweeney been able to get his teeth into the pre-tender consultation process? I believe he has been involved in it since his appointment, or the Metrolink team has been involved for some time. That might answer the question.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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That is the timeframe you would expect given the history - it is a big building project in the end. It requires significant tunnelling and building of underground stations. It will take some time. On the legal system, I agree with the Cathaoirleach. What was a stay on the decision – it was not a-----

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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There was a final decision.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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There have been developments that give some signs of encouragement. The Planning and Development Act is designed– I hope it does not get caught in the judicial review process to the same extent – to streamline the process. There have been positive developments recently, such as the decision to establish and create judges for the environmental court. We are starting to see some decisions fairly quickly. I think it is the uncertainty. I could list a number of other cases where it could be two or three years. There is no real clarity as to why it takes so long and it is a very expensive process. We need to focus on that.

On the metro, we kid ourselves a lot that we cannot build infrastructure but we can. We are quite good as a State. We built a motorway network on time at a relatively low cost by European standards. We also built the Luas lines pretty much on budget and on time. It was difficult, but there was good engineering. This Government rolled out the national broadband plan, which is not a small engineering feat. The plan has been hugely successful and was done on budget and on time. I could go on. Other countries are looking to copy what we are doing in the context of retrofitting. We can and will do it. Dr. Sweeney and colleagues will say, “Get this done quickly and get a good price”. One of the biggest constraints to which I keep going back is the financial provision. It will be a very expensive project. The more we can keep the cost of that down, the more we can fund other projects which we need to do in Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick. Time is one aspect.

The way to do that is to give real certainty to those developing and bidding that this is well planned, which it is, resource the bidding process and make sure there are people with Dr. Sweeney on the State side who know this business inside out. That helps to bring down the cost. It often revolves around resourcing the planning and the State side when dealing with other operators because that de-risks their bid process, which brings down the cost. They will bid competitively, and several serious players will bid. Getting that aspect right is why the appointment of this person to head the office and the staff to support him is important. Metros have been rolled out in Paris, Copenhagen and cities similar to Dublin on a regular basis. It is not new technology. It is standard kit.

The more we scale up our resources on the State side of that bid process, which is what we are doing and we need to do more, the more the price will come down and the time as well. It is not just about time. It is also about getting as good value for money as we can.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that. I will go back to the Senator and then I will come back in.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I will make one last point if I can, unless the Chair is coming back to the Senator on the airport cap.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I am.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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It was mentioned by the Chair, but it was already on my list of things to inquire about.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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Given this is likely to be the last meeting of this committee during this Dáil and, more importantly, likely to be the Minister's last contribution in the Houses in a long career, I was just wondering if the Minister would like to make some remarks in relation to Dublin Airport and recent events. I am sure it would be helpful to the Senator and me.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Perhaps I will comment on that point then. The airport cap and the metro were mentioned at the same time. They are connected. The airport cap came from our planning system and not our political system. It came from a recognition that we were really constrained on our roads around the M1 and the M50. The M1 is our busiest, most congested and most constrained road system, as are the roads around it going to the airport. This is real. Having been involved in this issue for many decades, I remember talking to the Arup engineer who designed the widening of the M50. We put in all the Red Cow upgrades and all the massive M1 and M50 junctions around the airport. I remember asking the engineer if that was it and he told me that was it. He said we could do no more, there was no way to expand the capacity there because it was at its maximum. With absolute certainty, it was said the road would gridlock.

I was involved in the planning hearing for the widening of the M50. I think the inspector's name was Devlin. We presented the analysis to show it was guaranteed to fill up, which is where it is now. There is this really chaotic system where it gridlocks if there is an accident or any sort of change. The roads around the airport are the same. This situation cannot be changed by building more roads. That is the first premise. This is a constraint on the airport. If the airport continues to grow, and it will do so, and it is a car-based transport system, we get tailbacks of many miles. Was it two-mile tailbacks that were modelled recently in respect of coming and out of the airport? The whole thing does not work then. The M50 gridlocks. There was, therefore, a reason the cap was put in place. I mention this background because it is one of the other cases for the metro. I mentioned the metro earlier. It is really a spine to build housing up in Lissenhall and Swords, all the institutional connections and having a north-south connection. One of the other benefits of having a metro is that it addresses the traffic capacity issue around the airport, which is a physical reality that cannot be ignored. It is a mathematical certainty that we will get all these massive tailbacks unless we have public transport alternatives.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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On that point, I get it. I remember being on the old Dublin Regional Authority when four people from Fingal were missing on the night of the AGM because they were voting for what was then being called the third runway. A lot of the argument was about the climate and the cap-----

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I think it was in 2007.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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It was the AGM of 2006. I remember that for a particular reason. I ended up being elected the chair.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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The Minister for housing and I were there.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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Yes. At the time, when we were looking at the cap, it had nothing to do with climate. That was not the argument as to why there was any cap. I suppose the cap was probably put in at a time when the airport was dealing with about 15 million people a year and it was never thought we would get to 30 million. A figure was just pulled out of the air of 32 million. I do not know why it was 32 million and not 28 million or 36 million. The feeling was that we were never going to reach the cap anyway so it did not matter, but here we are now. We have just spent over €300 million on a second runway, over €50 million on a tower to look over and observe the second runway, and now we are saying we should have less activity than we had before. I get what is being said about people living near the airport wanting certain quiet times in respect of night flights and so on. I do think the metro will do a certain amount, but, equally, it is about there being buses from everywhere and frequently. Who the hell wants to drive to the airport and pay €43 or €50 daily in the short-term car park or even €10 or €20 in the long-term car park if they can get the Aircoach bus? That is if there is one and it is near people.

I was talking to someone at the weekend at the coach tourism show. The annual dinner and awards and bus show was on in the RDS at the weekend. There are now bus routes from Limerick to Dublin Airport. Now, perhaps they should be going to Shannon Airport too, but these buses are bringing people to the airport who are not driving anymore from Limerick to Dublin Airport. They are not driving from Tullamore or Portlaoise. I think the airport is the biggest bus terminus in the country after Busáras, but the ramping up-----

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I think it is the biggest bus terminus, before Busáras.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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It is one or the other. There is certainly a huge amount of bus activity. In 2007, I think it was 1% or 2% of people who were travelling to the airport by bus, while it is now about 34%. This should, though, be 54% or 64%. The metro will help, but not everyone is coming from the city centre or from the metro line. Many people from outside Dublin are using Dublin Airport. If you happen to be in the car park, which I rarely am, you can see a great number of Northern-registered cars. People from the North are coming down and using Dublin Airport because it has got such good connectivity. Again, this is really about providing the transport services. The better, the more reliable, the cheaper and the more frequent, the more people will use them. I think we need to keep working on this.

We talked earlier about the Stillorgan quality bus corridor. It got people out of their cars. Everywhere we can, we should be trying to get people out of their cars. I am not talking about rural Ireland, about Connemara, Clifden or Ballyconneely. I know the Minister is very familiar with those areas. I am talking about areas where there is volume and there is density. Why would I drive in here, even with a free parking space, when it would take half an hour when I can get in on the bike in less than 20 minutes? It does not make sense. On the airport, I think we need to get rid of the cap and not just to raise it. If we raise it to 40 million, we will be back here in five years to raise it to 45 million or 50 million. It should not be there at all. Equally, however, we should be trying to stimulate more regional airport access. I know the Minister has done a good job in this regard in terms of the regional airport programme.

The Minister has so many great State agencies under his remit. Most people would love to be the Minister for Transport because everybody's life is impacted every day by transport. People get up in the morning and wonder how they will get to work and if they will be facing gridlock at the end of their roads. As the Minister knows, the Luas was transformative for south Dublin when it started in 2004. It just became a magnet that sucked people in. Those living 15 minutes and 20 minutes away from the Luas were willing to walk there because the tram got them to where they wanted to go. There was a guaranteed service and guaranteed journey times. It was worth the walk. It was not about building car parks for everyone and it cannot be.

The Minister has made a real impact on people's lives. All the people working in all the agencies under the remit of the Minister and his Department have agreed to meet us. They have come here to this committee. I was privileged to have been the Acting Chair and Leas-Chathaoirleach for almost two years when Deputy O'Donnell was promoted to be Minister of State and the former Deputy, Joe Carey, was sick. We may take transport for granted and it is only when it goes wrong that we talk about it. In some ways, this is probably always the way it is going to be. So much has transformed, though. I was on the Dublin Regional Authority, as we touched on earlier, in 2006, and in 2003 and 2004. If I drove in then, because there was no Luas and the bus would not move, I would be leaving my house at 5.10 p.m. for a 6.30 p.m. meeting because I could not be sure I could get in on time any other way. The M50 transformed people's lives too. The Minister will remember that it would take an hour at any time of the day to get from The Goat to Knocklyon, through Rathfarnham and Churchtown, in the 1990s before the advent of the M50.

Much has been done, therefore, and the public service performance report is good. I thank the Minister for his service. There is, though, plenty more we can do. At some point, I would still like to see the Minister's Department looking at the eastern bypass, not to build it but to examine the corridor that is still there, through Knockrabo, down through Belfield, across by the Radisson and out to the sea, for light rail, cycling routes or whatever. It is an opportunity, but if it is built on, we will never get it back.

We are only touching on the transport aspect today. In the context of the Minister's other Department, we are really going to have to ramp up addressing cybercrime. We have ramped up this activity and we are continuing to do so. We would all almost not exist without our phones, computers and email. We are using them for payments and real-time information. We must ensure our IT systems are robust, right across the State and in private and public settings, to ward off attacks from nefarious activity.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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Before the Minister comes back in, I will comment on a matter Senator Horkan touched on. It is something I really want to talk about in relation to the airport and I do not want the Minister having to double up on his answers. The Senator was talking about the multimodal means of people getting to and from Dublin Airport. The Minister spent some time talking about capacity issues with the local road network and all the rest of it. Future capacity, however, is something equally important to me. By future, I mean when the Minister and I are at the grand opening of the metro in Lissenhall in eight or nine years.

We will then be able to get to the city centre in 25 minutes. However, people coming down the northern commuter corridor from Louth, Meath and north Dublin - I hope we will by then also have the beginnings of the Navan line reopening or DART+ West along the Kildare lines - will all have to get off at a DART station that interlinks with the metro to double back on themselves. When I say Meath, I mean both Meath by the sea and central Meath. They are two different Meaths as far as I am concerned. The point I am making is that not having a connection from Lissenhall or Clongriffin to the northern commuter line does not make an awful lot of sense from a long-term planning perspective using the mathematics the Minister mentioned earlier regarding the capacity of the road network. I just wanted to put my oar in on that one and to say that, as part of the implementation of the all-island strategic review within the Department of Transport, while the northern commuter connection from Clongriffin to the airport by heavy rail is mentioned, a continuation or Luas from Lissenhall to Donabate should be provided given the planning and spatial strategy capacity of Donabate that has been around since the 1990s and that is currently being delivered. That should happen at some point. It does not have the necessary population today but it will in ten or 15 years. Dublin Airport has been relatively successful at managing ground traffic. The percentage of journeys taken by bus is 35%, if I am not mistaken.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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I believe I said 34%. I apologise.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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No, the Senator said 25% but that does not matter. The point is that it is a massive number. I would like to think there is capacity for us to start talking about that because we know how long it takes. We have discussed at length how long it takes for us to deliver these projects. We should start having that conversation now. If you check with Fingal County Council and the Department of housing, you will see there are just over 11,000 people living in Donabate and Portrane at the moment. There will be well over 20,000 living there in 15 years with the amount of development that is happening. There are two roads. One is a former farm road and other is the Hearse Road. The Hearse Road is a nightmare at the moment, never mind when we double the population. I am all about social infrastructure. That covers a lot of areas but it is mostly about transport infrastructure. In the Minister's response to Senator Horkan, perhaps he could also touch on those issues.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I will start with that. I agree with the Cathaoirleach. We have to think long term. Dublin and the surrounding counties are going to continue to develop. We need the metro. The strategic rail review did look at this issue, especially the capacity constraints on the M1 coming from north to south. While it is a longer-term recommendation, it recommended an interurban rail spur going through the airport and further south into the city. It also looked at exactly what the Cathaoirleach was describing, that connection from the commuter line across. I remember thinking about extending it from Lissenhall to Donabate. That is not in the existing planning application so it will not form part of the first phase but, by whatever mechanism it is done, the strategic rail review has made a recommendation based on modelling that backs up what the Cathaoirleach is saying. That is for the longer term. It is going to take some time. We have to build the metro.

I keep coming back to the point that Dublin is going to develop along the public transport routes we are investing in because there are no road plans for Dublin. There are none that would work so it has to be public transport. There is no road capacity that could be provided that would in any way address Dublin's transport issues. Because these projects and the land use plans connected to them are now so advanced, it will happen. The national planning framework is quite strong and clear on that. Even if you are building in the surrounding counties, you have to build on the rail lines rather than on the roads because, if you build on the roads, it will not work. You are coming to the M50, which is going to be gridlocked, and, when you get inside the M50, you are in a city that is bus-led with BusConnects corridors, so it just does not work to develop outwards on a car-based model. It cannot happen and will not work. The national planning framework agreed by Government yesterday doubles down on, copper-fastens and agrees with that.

I was listening to Senator Horkan while he was speaking and I was thinking it was like the old Fianna Fáil line: a lot done, a lot more to do.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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It was "A lot done. More to do".

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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That still stacks up today. It is poignant and appropriate to today. If I was putting a slogan out, I would add a third clause. I would say, "A lot done. More to do. A lot to lose." If we do not provide the investment, we could lose a lot. What this Government has particularly changed is the investment in active travel and public transport. It is not anti-car. We invested very significantly in car transport for the past 40, 50 or 60 years. If we do not invest in public transport, however, on the scale and with the sort of vision we have been talking about here today, we will lose. It will not work socially, in transport terms or environmentally.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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It actually does not work for the motorist.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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It also does not work for housing. We looked at a figure in the context of the national planning framework yesterday. Greenfield, car-based development puts an additional €115,000 on every housing unit compared with going with development based on public transport and compact development. It puts a cost of €115,000 on the Irish household. Not only does it cost you cash because you have to build all the sewers, paths, electricity wires, telecommunications and everything else, it also costs you because you are going to be stuck in traffic for hours. It is going to cost more to buy the house and you will be in an uncertain transport system. We have a lot to lose. Let us fund the alternative. Let us go with public transport projects. We will still do roads. We will do a lot of them, especially bypasses to help towns. That slogan is appropriate today as long as we do not have a lot to lose.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister very much. It behoves me to mark his final appearance before this committee prior to the likely dissolution of the Dáil with sincere thanks for all he has done in his Department. I note his stellar service to his constituency and to these Houses.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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We should say constituencies because he used to be my TD.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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On a personal basis, the Minister and I have worked across two Departments and I am very grateful to him. He was very available and it was always good to have conversations with him. I remember having a debate with him in the Thirty-second Dáil on my favourite subject, the metro. It was always an informative conversation. That has been continued in this, the Thirty-third Dáil. In my very brief time as Chair of the transport committee, his Department officials have been most helpful. I note my appreciation for them. As I have said, this is likely to be the last meeting of the transport committee so it behoves me to thank my colleagues. I note Senator Horkan's significant contribution to the committee, standing in as Chairman in the absence of the prior Chair, who was ill and unable to attend Leinster House. I thank the secretariat and the clerk for all of the contributions the backroom team make to these proceedings.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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On a similar note, I thank the Minister, Deputy Ryan, for his very long period of service in public life. I hope he will go on to do things he enjoys equally as much if not even more. I also thank the secretariat, Iqra Zainul Abedin, Ailish Murphy, James Keohane, Frank O'Leary, Anthony Larkin, who we had before, and the various people who work here. It was great. I thank all the State agencies that came in. There were a great many of them. At the Transport Research Arena conference in April, I was lucky enough to be invited to a dinner as Acting Chair and many people said it was great to meet me when I was not about to interrogate them. We sometimes forget how much access we have to our officials. It is great. We learn a lot. I hope they learn something from us as well. Transport is a very important topic, as is communications and every other topic. However, transport affects everybody every day. I thank everyone. I hope we will be back again. Who knows?

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I will invite the Minister to have the final word.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach and Senator Horkan. There has always been a good culture in our committees. We do need to be informed and inform each other by listening. I also thank the officials, the clerk and everyone else. These are the bowels of the building but it is where you learn. Knowledge is power in politics. If you treat the committees seriously, get engaged and involved, and listen as well as question, you learn a lot. That learning then benefits your constituents because you can make informed decisions as parliamentarians or as Ministers. Even the character of these rooms add to it and lend to it. Sometimes they can be star chambers and we need that too. It is the learning in these chambers in the 20 years I have been here, or 16 years on and off, that is one of the things I have appreciated most.