Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to hear Deputies raising issues in west Dublin. It is a bit mystifying that when transport is planned, the areas that have grown in population, as has been outlined, are left completely bereft. I am delighted, by the way, about the MetroLink to Swords because Swords is a hugely growing area as well. I feel, however, that this is being done more to make it easier for people to get to and from the airport rather than for the people who live in Fingal. That is fine and that is important, but if we want to take cars off the road daily, we have to plan transport for the suburbs.

The southside element has been dropped, but perhaps the NTA will consider thinking of west Dublin. There was a plan for metro west when I was on Fingal County Council. I will mention this briefly. The councillors agreed to rezone Kellystown, Barnhill and huge tracts of land for development on the basis of metro west. Hansfield strategic development zone, SDZ, has been mentioned. It has been thrown up apace. We absolutely want housing, but there is no point in planning to build in the outer parts of Dublin - we are talking about areas that are basically on the border with Meath - without providing transport. I was talking to Mr. Creegan at the BusConnects meeting in Blanchardstown and I made this point, that we need a Luas to Blanchardstown. This is not rocket science. If one lives more than eight miles out from the city, one cannot be purely reliant on buses. Light rail is needed to get people to and from places very quickly.

Mr. Creegan has argued that we have a rail line, but it does not go to where the population has increased. People living in Mulhuddart, Tyrellstown and parts of Ongar cannot gain access to the rail line. In any case, the rail service is not frequent enough. I accept that the rail line will be electrified at some point, which I welcome, but the service will still not cater for the existing need. We designed a proposal to extend the Luas to Dublin 15 from Broombridge. It is a low-density route and would be relatively cheap to do. One would travel from Broombridge to Connolly Hospital, IT Blanchardstown and the Blanchardstown Centre. Based on other light rail designs, the cost of such a phase 1 development would be approximately €45 million a kilometre or €315 million.

An additional factor in increasing traffic levels in Blanchardstown which is a problem if one lives there is the fact that there are large industrial parks. We all welcome the fact that there are more jobs and multinational companies setting up, but the 20,000 to 30,000 people working in Ballycoolin and other industrial parks have no other way to get there other than by driving. There is complete gridlock following the recovery in the economy. It does not seem that there is any onus on the companies setting up to make an additional contribution. For example, could there be a rates increase for the major companies based there to pay for a light rail system? If a rail system was extended from the shopping centre to Ballycoolin, for example, it would provide significant relief for thousands of people. One could then look at a third phase to Littlepace and Ongar. It might sound like a lot of money, but a significant amount is paid in rates and taxes in the area. That is what we need if we want to get people out of their cars to mitigate the effects of climate change. Reference is made in the submission to the fact that 67% of public transport journeys are made by bus. We need more light rail services to increase capacity.

We have spoken a lot about BusConnects. One of the major problems with it is that it is cutting some local bus services and making some people make two journeys rather than one. I do not have a problem with the town centre being turned into a hub for a rail link because a lot of people would get off a little bus onto a light rail service to travel directly into town, but the problem with BusConnects is that people would get off one bus and then fight to get on another one because it is not clear whether there would be sufficient capacity to take up the slack.

I urge the NTA to strongly consider this serious proposal. We need a Luas system for the 110,000 people who live in the greater Blanchardstown area. The same applies to other areas in west Dublin that were developed in the past 20 years. It is very sad for people to see what is proposed for Ranelagh just outside the city centre. Why would one need a metro to Ranelagh? There is no urgent need for it in the way there is for people who are living eight or ten miles out of the city where tens of thousands of people live. This is necessary and we must campaign for it and make it a big issue.