Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is hugely frustrating. The Government has not made a decision to delay this project by ten years but it looks like it will be delayed by ten years. This comes to the very core of these projects. Across north Dublin people have completely lost faith in the metro north project. The reason is that this saga has been going on for 20 years. The decision is out of the hands of TII because it was delayed in 2012 when a decision made, which I imagine added costs to the project. There was the route alignment, which I would love to investigate further with Mr. Walsh. I imagine increased costs arose as a result of representations made by me and many other people about that route. I would also say they arose because an unresearched proposal was made to locate a station on St. Mobhi Road. All of that said, and for all of those good reasons, the people of north Dublin are facing a situation where at best we are talking about 2035 for the delivery of a project that the Government is willing to fully fund now. Does Mr. Walsh accept that people are frustrated about this and have lost faith in this project? They will then lose faith in all of the other good projects that TII may deliver in our area, for example, a Luas line, which I believe will have a much faster track, but nobody believes that.