Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree with what Deputy Shortall has said about the Swords Road. There is absolutely no doubt the proposal for dealing with this major problem will be very contentious. If it goes ahead, areas like Lorcan Drive and Shanrath Road will end up as rat-runs. That is just the first problem. Hart's Corner will be probably an even bigger problem to solve. That is why I am saying we should have addressed all of these possibilities to see what could be done before we went down the road of going through massive consultation. We should have looked at what could be worked on and implemented. We should have looked at the effects on the running of buses of this approach when it is up and running. We should have concentrated on the bottlenecks. I think we are running into major problems because of our failure to take this approach to the matter. This is only the start of it. We will continue to run into problems.

The metro north proposal was on the table before this process began. There had been a great deal of consultation on that proposal. The possibility of park and ride up at the M50, which has been mentioned, was part of the metro north proposal. What was the procedure in terms of talking to the various Departments? Did we not say it would be far better to push forward with metro north and finish it at an earlier date than to go down this road? The proposal to which I refer would take approximately 70,000 cars a week off the road across the city and across the country. People would be coming in not just from Ballymun and the whole area right down along this route, but from every area. This proposal would affect the whole city. I think we have jumped from one scheme onto another scheme. We should have concentrated-----