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

The Chairman has defended him stoutly. I would expect nothing less. Another fundamental point, which I have made before and I will make to the NTA, is that investment in public transport must be democratic. In my constituency, the Luas red line serves Tallaght and there is a massive gap between that and the Luas green line. The demographics relating to Cherrywood, which Mr. Murphy pointed out, are very accurate. I know the Tallaght area and its catchment intimately. The purpose and design of Cherrywood is that people can work and live there and do not have to travel distances to get there.

The democratic nature of investment in public transport is not evident in this. The Luas green line is barely 15 years old and the Government wants to double down with further investment of €500 million to upgrade it while there are suburbs such as Firhouse, Knocklyon and Ballycullen, which are burgeoning areas, along with Rathfarnham and Templeogue. There are a number of concepts which I know the Green Party representatives have spoken about, and although they do not exclusive rights to them, we are ad idemon one of them. There is a possibility of connecting the green and red lines for the same kind of money. There are a number of routes by which the green and red lines could be connected, for example, along by Marlay Park out to Old Bawn and Tallaght, or from Churchtown via Templeogue village, Greenhills and St. Peter's Road out to Ballymount and the Luas red line at the Red Cow. This would provide a circular Luas line connected with a metro line to form a T shape.

My view, which I believe is shared by some of my colleagues, although I do not speak for them, is that the NTA ought to proceed with the metro north element of this and get going on it pretty quickly because everyone is in agreement with it, but it needs to go back to the drawing board on this other piece. That certainly would be our strong view, but it is politics that will make the decision on that.