Mr. Brendan O'Brien:

We did modelling work on O'Connell Bridge. When we looked at the north and south quays and implemented public transport measures in August, we introduced two specific measures. One was a bus priority measure by which we could control the volume of general traffic that made it to Bachelors Walk to give priority to public transport. The second measure, which was the key one, was the introduction of a right turn ban on cars turning on to O'Connell Bridge. That was designed to allow public transport to smoothly flow through that area. The Deputy is correct that there was an issue with the longer trams and the Luas crossing smoothly from the south side to the north side without stopping on the bridge and interfering with traffic. When we looked at maintaining the current traffic flow, it simply was not going to work. Introducing those measures has alleviated many of the concerns. Now that the longer trams are starting to go into service, we have worked through how we make sure they go across the bridge but we have to put in an important caveat, which is that there is shared running. The Luas does not have its own dedicated space on O'Connell Bridge; it shares with other modes of transport. If a bus or a taxi is stopped in front of a tram and does not allow it to proceed, the tram from time to time will block the south quays or if that happens on the Rosie Hackett Bridge, it will block the north quays. We have tried to minimise that by placing the emphasis on public transport and reducing the volume of traffic entering the D'Olier Street-College Green area.