An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-10
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I know he has been particularly strong on the DART+ South West project and the need to have it greenlighted. He has, more or less, been successful in achieving the latter. I will support the Deputy's dialogue with the NTA. I have made the point that, generally speaking, there has been a great deal of negotiation, dialogue and engagement with residential groups across the country, particularly in Dublin and Cork, in respect of BusConnects. This has created a lot of challenges. Given the fact that the NTA is a State agency, there needs to be a constant, robust mechanism for engagement with communities, because some of these proposals are not landing well. Different age cohorts have different responses to how BusConnects manifests itself in the context of, for example, safety and so on. I have made that point to the NTA. It has improved in many areas regarding its consultations with communities. As the services are being rolled out, some communities do not feel they are getting what was envisaged.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-10