Senator John McGahon- speech from 3 Feb 2022

Yes, Senator Reilly, it's great to see you in the chair today and I know that you'll do an excellent job. Look, what I'm going to raise again is what I've been talking about for a long time, which is this concept of the three-day tax-saver ticket, flexi-ticket for commuters. The NTA wrote to me last Friday to say after 18 months of telling me that they were going to introduce it and as recently as the 18th of December that they'd introduced it at the end of Q1 of 2022, they've turned around and said that they've decided they're not going to introduce it because a it's too complex, b it's too financially difficult to do it. I think that's totally and utterly wrong. I think it shows where commuters lie in terms of the NTA's priorities. We've had 18 months where we have done colossal things in terms of legislation, in terms of introducing stuff overnight. A flexi-ticket should be something that should be easily introduced regardless of whether there's a pandemic or not. And just to give one kind of common example, I was speaking to a friend of mine who's travelling twice on the train from Dundalk to Dublin this week. It cost him €64 for two return trips. It will be cheaper for him to put £50 in his tank and drive up and down the road. So we, and you know yourself, need to get people out of cars onto public transport. And because the NTA are not willing to introduce this instead of the local alternative options, it's actually cheaper and easier for someone to drive up to Dublin and back. I want to be very clear, it's not the fault of the Minister either. This is something that devolved responsibility has been provided to the NTA. It's something the NTA have been solely working on. But now what I would really appreciate is, after I have spent 18 months trying to work it through the official channels with the NTA, and the NTA have failed to deliver. They've pulled the plug at the 11th hour. I would really appreciate it if we could speak to Minister Eamon Ryan and I can speak to Minister Hildegard Nocton in that department to put some real ministerial pressure on the NTA to say, OK, you're not going to introduce it. What is the alternative? What is the next option? And how soon are you going to introduce it? And get some affirmative action now, because it's just not acceptable at this stage. We'll release it in sequence for weeks to see you deliver a good evening. So, please go to Dan Sh Jonas. I'm going to talk about the previous speaker and Butler sometimesになります.