Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I very much appreciate the opportunity to come in. As Deputy Catherine Murphy said earlier, we have been soldiering on this specific issue for 25 years and, trust me, it is not going away. It will be centre stage in this country and city and there is a huge amount of work to be done.

I am never late, and I was not late in the morning, because I cycle in, but I dare anyone to take the last mile or two of my route, weaving as I do between buses, trucks and other bikes in the chaos that is Leeson Street and St. Stephen's Green. I hold the witnesses personally responsible for the harrowing nature of my journey. I am sorry for being personal and hard but it is borne out of 25 years of frustration. When I came in this morning I had my coffee and I saw a bunch of officials in the corner. I thought, "God help them they are the health service officials about to get a grilling" and then I realised it was our transport officials. I will be critical but I hope it is constructive criticism and it is certainly based on real urgency and need.

The criticism is because of exactly what Deputy Catherine Murphy said, which is that the analysis of what we have needed for the past 25 years has been ignored. There was clear understanding as far back as 25 years ago. All of the transport analysis was that we needed to switch to public transport and to stop the sprawl and concentrate development but everything since then has gone in the opposite direction. I remember as clear as if it were yesterday a meeting with the key engineers, planners and modellers at the conclusion of some of the modelling research we did in the late 1990s. We were finalising the A Platform for Change plan and a slide was shown asking what were the first priorities and what would we do first. I will never forget it. The first priority was to build the metro or the DART interconnector or both because they were the two crucial pieces of public transport infrastructure and, later, possibly widening the M50 would be considered. What did we do first? We widened the M50, dumped the metro and now are still dumping the DART interconnector which, God help us, is needed for the people in Kildare and Meath and for the entire system to work.

I am sorry to hear the analysis given today in the presentations to the effect that there has been a lack of investment in recent years and that the M50 has become a problem. That is nonsense. I sat for three weeks at the oral hearing on the widening of the M50. It was as clear as day and a mathematical certainty that the M50 was going to gridlock. It was probably two years later than the projections because of the economic crash, but that is the full extent of it. Why was the pressure so much greater to upgrade the M50 and not the pursue the other projects? I remember the inspector tried to stitch in a requirement for some type of management system. The political system ignored it. The political system must hold its hand up here too. We are facing chaos.

I am sorry but the reason for my anger is that I have utterly lost confidence in TII. I have no confidence in its leadership. I had confidence previously in the NTA but I am increasingly seeing that it talks the talk but does not walk the walk, and it sure as hell does not cycle it either. I have read Mr. Nolan's presentation. He said:

A number of schemes identified by TII to address congestion in the Dublin area have been included in the National Development Plan 2018-2027 either for delivery or for further development within the lifetime of the plan. Details of these proposals are included in the supplementary information at the end of this statement.

I went to the end of the statement to see what schemes are being planned to address congestion. The schemes are to widen the M7 between Naas and Newbridge and to widen the N2 near Slane with a bypass. I do not dispute the fact that people in Slane will want that. There are also schemes to widen the N2 between Rath and Kilmoon Cross, to widen the N3 at Clonee, to widen the N4 from Maynooth to Leixlip and to widen the N11 and upgrade the junction near Kilmacanogue. We have learned nothing. The scheme to tackle congestion in Dublin from TII is to widen further the approach roads into Dublin, a city that cannot cope.

I am sorry but that is just not good enough. One must ask why we keep going wrong on this, after 25 years of knowing what we must do, namely, invest in public transport and bring development back to the core. Is it that the people who are building the roads are so influential in IBEC or that the PPP projects are so attractive or so easy to finance? We are saving ten minutes on each of those widening projects so this makes the economic analysis case and Colm McCarthy must be right. I am sorry, but Colm McCarthy is wrong. What level of gridlock do we have to reach? Do we just keep widening roads? When do we stop the widening?