Public Transport
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-24
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Louis O'Hara (SF), Galway East

I just cannot accept the response that nothing is going to be done here in the short term. We are told we have to wait for carriages, with very vague assurances as to when they are going to become available. I have been contacted in relation to people becoming unwell. One woman described getting on the train this week and said that people were pushing and shoving so much that she thought someone could go down the gap between the train and platform. This is the situation on public transport every morning into Galway city.
Can the Minister of State give us a clear timeline as to when the rail services going in and out of Galway specifically, and particularly that one arriving at 8.10 a.m., will have additional carriages? Can we get a clear time on that? How we have ended up in this situation where we do not have additional rail carriages? I appreciate it takes time and we cannot just get them into service within a very short period but how has there not been forward planning such that we are left in this situation? I also want to ask about the Athenry bus service. That has been promised for two years and would make a really significant difference in terms of taking pressure off these services. Why has that not been funded?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-24