Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased we are meeting on this issue, which I sought to have included in our work programme. In doing so, what I had in mind was that we consider medium and longer term scenarios because it is important that we are proactive rather than reactive in terms of what can happen.

Deputy Eamon Ryan and I first met on the consultative panel of the Dublin Transportation Initiative in the early 1990s and we have maintained our interest in transport since then. This initiative arose out of the change in European policy in regard to how European funding was allocated. Congestion in Dublin was regarded as such an impediment to the economy that this initiative was put in place to try to resolve it. As part of that work, there was some scenario testing in regard to land use planning around, for example, where people lived, where they worked and so on. The intention was to try to consolidate the city centre and have less demand from outside, but the opposite happened because some of the critical pieces of infrastructure were not provided. In fact, some of them have only recently come on stream. In the intervening years between 1996 and 2016, according to the census, population growth was as follows: Dublin city, 13%; Dún Laoghaire, 13%; South Dublin County Council, 22%; Fingal, 43%; Meath, 41%; Kildare, 39%; and Wicklow, 28%. There are now more people living in counties Meath, Kildare and Wicklow than there are in Dublin city and Cork city and county. In terms of the origin of congestion, it is arising out of additional demand from areas that have not featured in terms of the policy responses or public funding provision to deal with sustainable transport in the city.

The greater Dublin area has expanded even further and areas such as north County Wexford, County Laois and Drogheda are now almost regarded as suburbs of Dublin city. We need to get serious about planning for where people live and how they commute. A national development plan and a national planning framework were announced recently. I cannot figure out why DART underground was not one of the central pieces of this plan given the inadequate surface that exists to accommodate all types of transport, including more sustainable patterns of transport such as cycling and walking. Given we are facing very considerable fines in regard to climate change transport, I do not understand why DART underground was not one of the key pieces of that plan. I would like to hear from the witnesses what business case was put forward in this regard, including whether congestion in the city and the loss of productivity and people's time were taken into consideration in that regard.

I welcome the 28% increase in Luas passenger numbers. There is a misunderstanding in parts of the country about transport services in Dublin, which we hear about constantly in the Dáil. I am speaking about the greater Dublin area where a sizeable amount of development contributions will be collected to help fund Luas. There is a degree of public information required on how some of these projects are funded because there is a lack of understanding around how income derived from transportation is spent. We probably spend the vast majority of motor tax in areas outside of the greater Dublin area.

Has the National Transport Authority and-or Transport Infrastructure Ireland undertaken an analysis of the cost of congestion? On the purchase of trains, I understand there is a five year lead-in in this regard but that some of the old carriages have been refurbished and are being brought back into service. Every day, when the first train from Maynooth reaches Leixlip, which is two stations down the line, it is full and there is standing room only for the remainder of the journey. It was mentioned earlier that if we build it, they will come. To encourage people to use public transport, it must be attractive. BusConnects is a useful service but there is inadequate promotion around the attractiveness of it as a system of moving around. For example, there is need for greater promotion of timetables, capacity and the fact that there is an area where people can wait in comfort for the bus, without which, given our climate, the service would be off-putting. There is also need for review of network planning from the point of view of commuter usage and the connection of areas from a commuter perspective.

This will work if people, when they see it published, say "now, that is a great idea". That particular aspect requires detailed attention because it must be attractive to people to use.

I am one of the people who causes the congestion in the city. I drive in to work on most days mainly because I am never quite sure what time I will go home. People can delay leaving work or leave early to try to get on the right side of the traffic. What interaction does Transport Infrastructure Ireland have with An Garda Síochána? In all of the years that I have been driving to Leinster House I have never seen anyone enforcing the yellow box rule. I have never seen a garda at a junction. Last night I encountered a scenario that was quite typical when I was trying to find the best way out of the city. It was after 7 p.m. and I drove down by Pearse Street but could not get onto the quays. I then went up Gardiner Street and down by the Ilac Centre where I had to bully my way into a lane. There is no discipline on the roads in terms of cars merging, for example, because there are no consequences due to a lack of enforcement. What is happening in that regard? It is only when there are initiatives like Operation Freeflow at Christmas, which involves the enforcement of the rules, that one sees different driver behaviour.

Mr. Nolan made the following comment in his opening statement: "...if appropriate speed limits are obeyed". That is a very big "if". Does he envisage this being dealt with technically or how does he anticipate that happening? Having driven on motorways in the UK, for example, I have seen rubber necking happen and I have seen drivers speeding up and slowing down. Such behaviour is not unique to Ireland. While we might like people to be robots, they are not. If that is our solution to congestion, then we need to do a lot more in terms of enforcement.

I wish to pick up on a comment Deputy Munster made about capital cities. I have been in most European capital cities. I was in Berlin recently, a city whose population is the same as that of the entire island of Ireland. I was there for four days and never saw a traffic jam. I saw trains, metros, buses and people cycling. I saw every mode of transport possible but I did not see a traffic jam once in four days. That is because Berlin does not have bits of a system but rather a whole system. Unfortunately, what we have here are bits of a system. We have had bits of a system since the 19th century and we need to pull those bits together. Pulling them together requires one big initiative, namely, the interconnector. I want to know why that is not considered by TII and the NTA to be one of the critical pieces of transport infrastructure.