Public Transport Dail Éireann — 2026-02-04 ============================================================ Shane Moynihan (FF), Dublin Mid-West I thank the Minister of State for her comprehensive reply. I note, as I said in my on contribution and the Minister of State mentioned, the ability to interchange with the likes of route 16 from the city centre is available to people. However, I would emphasise, as has been emphasised to me by constituents Mary and Gerard Sammon in Lucan, that the route 16 is one that takes a long time. It compounds the fact that one must travel into the city centre to go out to the airport, whereas a link that goes onto the M50 allowing an orbital route would be far preferable. The Minister of State mentioned the NTA undertakes an evaluation of whether a PSO is necessary on a route. I note that the answer did not state whether the NTA has actually done that evaluation. If that has taken place, I would welcome the NTA making it available in order to allow it to be scrutinised and held up for further analysis. I welcome that the Minister of State will take on board the suggestions I made about inserting new pick-up and drop-off stops on the N4 for existing routes that go to the airport from the western part of the country in particular and those that use the N4. That should be consistent with the principles the NTA has set out in its response and conveyed to the Minister of State. If we are suggesting people can use existing routes that take longer to access from Lucan, surely it is consistent with that approach that we allow existing routes coming into the city from the western part of the county to have stops incorporated in them to allow people to access this. This suggestion is coming from constituents and, from my point of view and that of the Minister of State, from a place of wanting people to use public transport. We regularly discuss congestion in this House. I would welcome the NTA making the results of its evaluation available to us for scrutiny. I would like to see how it has done that analysis. If that is not the case, will the NTA then engage with the public transport market to see if a provider will take on this route on a commercial basis? The population is there and the demand is there for what I think should be a commercial service. However, that certainty and guidance from the NTA will be needed to build that appetite in the market. --- 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/2026-02-04/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:35+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-04