Public Transport Dail Éireann — 2026-01-20 ============================================================ Aidan Farrelly (SD), Kildare North I was preparing myself to get back up to criticise the Minister of State for giving me a blank reply but, in fact, what he has done is given me a very detailed reply and I thank him for it. There is a lot that I can take back with me to constituents and to my colleagues, Councillors Peter Melrose and Nuala Killeen, who have been working tirelessly on this for many years. I had not seen confirmation in writing before tonight that the depot for DART+ West will be in the Maynooth-Kilcock area. When we spoke with the NTA last week it did not confirm this. I really welcome that it has been confirmed this evening. What the NTA did speak about was a public consultation that might be aligned with this. Does the Minister of State know anything specifically about this, whereby communities in the area will be asked their opinion on this? I know Irish Rail has done considerable work in going back to the drawing board with regard to the depot. I want to press on the Minister of State the importance of this next matter and I cannot underplay its significance. If a depot comes to Kilcock, can we make sure that a stop in Kilcock is part of it? For years people in Kilcock have been told they will have the depot, the noise and the lights, and they will nearly be able to smell it, but they will not be able to use it. It would make absolute sense, if we are bringing the depot as far as Kilcock, which I welcome and I support the Minister of State and the Government wholeheartedly if we can deliver this, that we can include a station with the depot. It would make massive sense from a future planning perspective. I thank the Minister of State for being here and for giving me such a detailed reply. The only outlying piece is whether there is a timeframe for the public consultation in Kilcock. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-20/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-20