Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair for facilitating me. I am not a member of this committee, but I wanted to make fairly important points, some of which have been addressed by my constituency colleague.

Although I was not going to comment on the matter just mentioned by the Chairman, I am of the view that the committee should make its opinions heard in the strongest possible way. I am old enough, and have been a bus user long enough, to remember the lunacy of when there were restrictions on the pass. I sat on buses where ten or 15 minutes in circumstances were wasted by drivers having arguments with people who said they had been waiting at the stop since before the cut-off time. In an era of discussions on high-speed connections and improving the service, the farce that is someone suggesting something that we had the good sense to get rid of over 20 years ago is beyond comprehension.

I will raise my core point with the witnesses. Unlike my constituency colleague, Deputy Lahart, I do not welcome elements of the NTA's proposal on BusConnects. While I welcome the strategy of improving our bus services and the idea behind it, given that an improvement is vital, I wish to discuss the manner in which the NTA has chosen to implement it. I appreciate that every organisation has to make decisions about how it will do something, but I base my decisions on what I believe is at the heart of representative politics, that is, representing everyone in our communities regardless of whether he or she voted for us.

I draw the witnesses' attention to something that is inherently lacking. Transport forms part of a city of communities. It is not something that takes place in the abstract. Nor does it involve the movement of many people from one part of a city to another, as desirable as that is. Rather, it is about moving people through communities and neighbourhoods where there are families, sporting organisations and community groups. While theoretical planning is welcome and has to be done, and the NTA will now be moving to a consultation process, there was a lack of real involvement before an undetailed announcement about something that would impact on the daily lives of hundreds or thousands of people was made.

I will take the witnesses through what I mean by that, particularly as regards the Templeogue proposal. Developing that bus route will involve the closure of a road to inbound traffic and the diversion of traffic onto two other roads. One of those is Cypress Grove Road. It is a small point, but emblematic of how the NTA approached this matter, that it could not even get the name of the other road right. It has actually proposed that the traffic be moved onto Springfield Road, which is a cul-de-sac in a quiet residential area. That may be a typo, but I do not know how many hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of euro have been spent on this document. It was published without being proofread, a level of sloppiness that has caused excessive worry to residents who will not be directly impacted. That is not worthy of an agency like the NTA.

I will not discuss the benefit of the QBC because everyone recognises that it will have benefits. In its considerations, what weighting has the NTA given to people living in the area through which it intends to divert traffic? It is proposing bringing roads to a standstill. For example, hundreds of families living on or close to Cypress Grove Road will not be able to get onto it in the morning. Given that someone in the authority will have examined the matter in some detail, the NTA will be well aware that these roads are already congested and have queue times in excess of 20 minutes between one junction and the next at peak times. Despite that, the NTA will still move a volume of traffic onto it. I appreciate that the long-term goal is for car drivers - "God love them, they are stupid" - to stop driving after the NTA has made it impossible for them to drive into the city, but that will not happen immediately. As such, there will be an impact.

Let us consider the NTA's track record. It said one thing about the interconnector around College Green but, when that did not work, it had to divert the bus routes to free up the complete gridlock. I am worried about the impact of the plan on communities if the NTA does not get this right in the theoretical and planning phases before it goes live.

Many of the questions that have already been asked of the witnesses I would ask as well. What will be the NTA's communication process with the communities? I am not just referring to those along the routes, but also in the surrounding areas. How does it intend to engage and how quickly will it do so? Why did the NTA decide not to indicate clearly from the first moment what lands and gardens would be subject to compulsory purchase orders, CPOs? I am sure it must have had an idea. While it engages in a consultation process, whole roads and areas are being put into limbo for people who are trying to move, sell their houses and so on. I cannot believe that there is not a plan sitting somewhere in the NTA's offices outlining whether the houses on, for example, the left-hand side of a road would be affected as opposed to those on the right-hand side.

A question was asked about Templeogue village. It is almost a complete logjam. The witnesses can reply to me and Deputy Lahart in writing. How does the NTA plan to address the route through that area?

How does what is proposed sit with the fact that South Dublin County Council has a redevelopment plan for the village?. The left hand does not seem to know what the right is doing.

The question of other QBCs has been raised. Before massive plans such as this - however necessary they may be - are put in place, a massive increase in the number of buses using existing, under-utilised QBCs would be much more welcome. That is at the heart of what I wish to say. If people had an opportunity to get on a bus, we would have a real indication in my constituency as to the level of bus usage. There is a logjam on the N11 - the Stillorgan dual carriageway - at Donnybrook. Everyone who travels the route by bus knows that. People get on the bus because there is a proper service that runs in a QBC most of the way. That shaves a lot off one's travel time when one compares it with a journey by car and people accept the fact that there will be logjams. People in my constituency, those in Ballycullen and Firhouse, do not have that option.

I will make a final point which explains a lot of the cynicism people have about consultation. I went through this as a councillor with Dublin Bus. I appreciate that the witnesses are not here to represent that company. Those who do represent Dublin Bus came, saw and said they would talk. What they did ultimately was implement a structure that suited an element of the transport community. It suited people who wanted to travel from an outer area to work in the morning as fast as possible. That worries me because the witnesses seem to be thinking the same way. Who was left behind? Pensioners, schoolchildren, older people with disabilities and those who could not make the 15-minute walk to the nearest bus-stop because they were not in full fitness and health. I know that there is a second phase on the way regarding the interconnectors. However, I am concerned that, again, we are looking at developing a transport system which focuses on a particular section of society and which does not take account of the people whose communities through which that system will run and those who do not have the ability or the wherewithal to get to the major interconnector routes.