With the busy Christmas season almost upon us, will the Taoiseach ask the NTA to confirm the arrangements for late-night DART, bus and Luas services? More generally, the new 24-hour services are extremely welcome, such as the E1 and E2 along the N11. However, I have received several complaints about insufficient, overcrowded and delayed services, phantom buses and full buses passing by at peak times and on the late-night services. Will the Taoiseach ask the NTA to review frequency and capacity to ensure the public can depend on these services?

I thank the Deputy for raising a very important issue. He is correct that the NTA has statutory responsibility in this matter. The authority is currently finalising plans for late-night services over the Christmas period and will publish full details of those arrangements late next week. The Deputy has been a strong advocate for this service and for clarity around it. I will alert the authority again of his concerns. In line with the approach adopted in previous years, broadly speaking, additional late-night services will be provided in the lead-up to Christmas on Luas, DART and commuter rail, as well as extra Nitelink and commuter bus services. This is in addition to the expanding 24-hour network and usual Nitelink services. The Christmas public transport schedules are typically published in the first week of December. The Transport for Ireland website includes information for each of the operators. The Government is committed to providing all citizens with reliable, realistic and sustainable mobility options. As the Deputy said, public transport is key to that.