Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We are not going back to the drawing board on the metro. We have had public consultations on various things which were built in. If we did not have public consultations on a plan as dramatic and radical as this and we were not prepared to change things in response to the consultations, the Deputy would be the first to say - and rightly so - that the NTA was dictatorial and was overriding the wishes of the people, etc. There are public consultations ongoing because what is going on with the metro, BusConnects and other things represents an extremely dramatic development. We are not going back to the drawing board. What we are doing is responding to the public consultations both on the northside and on the southside of Dublin and making adjustments accordingly. Some very dramatic and uncomfortable things are going to happen but we are going to be flexible because if initial responses are so convincing that the initial plan will have effects which have not been anticipated, it is better to adjust them. That is what is happening there. We will see a preferred route come out very shortly. The commitment to a route was not there prior to that. This consultation has been about a route and finding the best route. We are not going back to the drawing board but we are responsive to change.

I will come back to the Deputy in a second on the Dunkettle interchange overrun. It will go ahead. If the Deputy likes, we can get an update from TII. We have no indication that it is behind schedule, but we can check that for the Deputy, and we have no indication that the budget is inadequate. The Deputy is hitting me with something that we are not aware of and which we do not think is the case. He appears to have information but we are prepared to find out for him.

The Deputy is wrong about learner drivers. The numbers on the waiting list for driver tests are falling. The target was ten weeks and the average around the country is now at 8.8 weeks.