Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It was decided to try to get it speeded up because we are limited in the passage of Bills in the Dáil. Even if it is slightly inelegant in having a variety of Committee Stage amendments, I would prefer to get it through rather than waiting six months, nine months or a year, which can happen. I expect to have it shortly but we will also have to work with the Chief Whip's office. As soon as we can get it into the House for Second Stage, we will do so.

On Finglas, I ask the Deputy to endear himself to his party colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, because one of the challenges we will have is that, on the public transport side in particular, we have myriad projects vying for funding at a roughly similar time. The problem is that many of them are not ready to go to construction now. If they were ready, they would be out the gate, but they have to go through the planning process.

I remember launching the Finglas project nine months ago or so and I was thrilled to do so. It seems to me to be an obvious extension, it is mainly through greenfield sites, it services areas that badly need public transport development, and it would open up a lot of land, which is what we need to do on this. I was slightly disheartened when I looked at the projected timelines and I wondered why it was going to take so long. One of the difficulties is that we have to invest in MetroLink and the DART+ programme. They are both huge investment projects that are beyond compare in their scale. The BusConnects project will also not be cheap and that is before we start looking at the Navan rail line, and the Cork, Limerick and Galway rail investments, which are all investments we need to make. One of the challenges in the national development plan is how we will fit all of these public transport projects into what will be, if we are up front and honest, a limited budget.

I would be interested in talking to the Deputy in more detail about the possibility of connecting the Finglas route to the MetroLink. I would have thought that one risk of going down that route is that we get away from the greenfield access routes the preferred route option is on. I would be slightly nervous that such an approach would run into planning difficulties and delays, which is what is taking us so long. My instinct would be to stick with the existing route and use whatever help the Deputy can give me in getting the budget requirements we would need to be able to fund all of these public transport projects. That will be a real problem.