Flexible Work and Commuter Delays: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21
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Pa Daly (SF), Kerry

Workers and families across the State are being failed on public transport and worker flexibility. These failures are not abstract; they are the lived reality of people across the island. There are commuters wasting hours of their lives in traffic chaos, waiting for buses or sitting in cars as they inch through gridlocked traffic. It is having a tangible, real-life impact on the quality of life for people.
Despite years of promises, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have created a system that is defined by delay and stagnation. Major projects that could have transformed connectivity and mobility have been stalled for years. The MetroLink is a symbol of everything that is wrong with transport planning. It has been decades in development with projected costs of over €20 billion and we still have not broken ground. Dublin is the only large European capital without a metro and with each passing year, the failure to deliver that demonstrates how little concern this Government has for public money.
In another hallmark move, both the Government and Regional Independents have decided not to prioritise the DART+ South West and the Finglas Luas. The situation on the M50 is at crisis point but the only thing the Government has done is to heap further pressure on drivers by increasing petrol and diesel prices through the carbon tax. DART+ South West has been pushed beyond 2030 and the Finglas Luas is delayed until 2029.
In Kerry, I meet people who are losing hours of their lives stuck in traffic, particularly in Killarney where it is very bad, or waiting on bus services that are oversubscribed and do not have enough capacity, and the buses are passing them by. The Government is telling people to get out of their cars but that is not an option in places like Kerry. When students cannot get to college and people cannot get to work and when workers are left at the side of the road and are late to work, that is not an option. The cost of it is staggering and I applaud the Labour Party for bringing forward this motion.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-31T01:00:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-21