John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I might skip the compliments and allow those present to take them for granted. The officials from the NTA and TII, the stakeholders, have given very comprehensive contributions and reports on the impact. If I were to summarise it, the impact of this on the local community would be to close down a huge section of the community and to close down the heart of the community. I will leave my comments at that because I wish to raise other issues. I am Dublin spokesperson for my party and work alongside Mary Fitzpatrick and Councillor Paul McAuliffe. I know my party leader, Deputy Micheál Martin, was in the area and met some of the stakeholders recently, which is an indication of how seriously we take this matter.

Three clichés come to mind. I hope the Chairman does not mind my repeating them. One is "you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs". We are into scrambled eggs already at this stage before the process has even begun. All I would say to residents is that my experience of infrastructural projects in my own constituency, such as the M50 and the Luas, is that the public comes last. TII is a brilliant organisation, as is NTA, but while they may say things about public consultation really they are project-driven. One will therefore need the support of one's public representatives right along the way to hold them to it. If I were chief executive of any of these organisations, I would want to get the project delivered too. That will be their focus.

What is this committee's function in respect of this matter? We do not have any statutory role in this, do we? In other words, what is the status of this meeting?