Senator John McGahon- speech from 16 Nov 2022

I wouldn't dare to doubt your impartiality in the chair, Joe, but I wouldn't dream of doubting it, Joe. Anyway, great to have the CBS here from the doc. They are the Student Union Council and I know they're doing some wonderful work with Maria and Hannah. Acting Leader, the reason I'm chatting today, we would have seen this morning about the Limerick and Foynes railway line being reopened and that process is starting. I know you're an avid rail user as well to get from Mayo to here and what we need to do now where we are coming into this situation where we're really encouraging public transport as much as possible, I think is having a dedicated strategy, aside from the rail strategy and the rail review which is happening, a dedicated strategy for looking at reopening our disused and our older railway lines. And I'm saying that in particular in our rural areas because it's rural areas where we really have to do the most to empower people and allow people to avail of public transport and climate action measures. And when I look at my own county of County Louth, I look at Dunlear Rail Station. Dunlear in Mid-Louth is probably one of the biggest towns, asides from RD in the Mid-Louth area, but it doesn't just cater for County Louth. It caters for people coming from Meath, it caters for people coming from South Monaghan and it has a really, really big catchment area where it makes it difficult for anyone in that region to either have to go into Drawhillard and walk to get a train. So I would really like to see a dedicated government strategy coming forward to look at reopening our rural rail services which have been closed for over 50 or 60 years. Now I'm not advocating for every single rail to be open, but for large provincial areas like this and large rural towns, I think it would be really useful. Because if we are going to take this approach, it can't just be in large towns or urban cities, it has to benefit all of our society and including rural Ireland. And I would really appreciate a debate on our old rural train stations and having them reopened as part of a specific strategy alongside the rail strategy. And I would really appreciate that at some stage in the future. Thank you very much, indeed, Senator McClellan.