Ms Anne Graham:

One of the things that has to be recognised is that transport planning is a particular expertise that I would like to think we retain within the NTA. We use the expertise and the modelling tools that we have. We produce a transport strategy that is based on data, growth patterns and projections that are very much based in reality, with regard to what can be delivered. That expertise is used to produce a transport strategy without looking at what area is going to benefit more than another. We apply it equally across the whole of the greater Dublin area to the best of our knowledge and expertise, and then we put that out for public consultation. In the development of that this time around we used, as I said, a very strong consultative committee of local representatives to assist us in building that as we went through the different stages.

On a non-statutory basis, one could say there was democratic input through that committee. There is no doubt but that it could be structured in a different way, on a much more statutory basis. We could still retain the expertise in the authority that we bring through that process. That was a model that has been considered.