Shay Brennan (Dublin Rathdown, Fianna Fail)

I, too, congratulate the Cathaoirleach. I look forward to working with him and the rest of the committee in the next four and a half years. As much as we have a remit to ensure the delivery of the national development plan, we also have a remit to ensure value for money. I am new to committees, however, and do not know if we have the scope to actually go into individual or constituency projects. I will give one example. Maybe there will be an opportunity to talk about this specifically down the road, or maybe not. It at least illustrates what I am talking about. I represent Dublin Rathdown, encompassing the Dundrum, Sandyford and Ballinteer areas, which are served by the Luas green line. We are very fortunate to have it. When the green line was constructed, it was constructed as far as Sandyford and built to the standard of a metro, which means the tracks were built to accommodate the weight, speed, etc., of a metro. I have seen a figure that suggests that when the Dublin MetroLink, which is due to go as far as Charlemont, is being constructed, extending it from there all the way to Sandyford at that time would come in at a cost of approximately €300 million. If we do not extend it at that time and have to come back to retrofit it and join the two up again, I have seen estimates that it would cost multiples of the €300 million figure.

We are going to need that upgrade because of what is being developed on that line. There is Cherrywood with 7,000 new homes, the LDA site on the grounds of the former Central Mental Hospital which will deliver up to 1,000 homes, and the private development by Hammerson in Dundrum village which will potentially create 1,400 new homes. There will also be thousands of other houses constructed because there is a big push to build along Luas lines. We are going to have to come back to complete that project. If we do it now, we do it for €300 million. If we do it in ten years’ time, we do it for a multiple of that. We are missing something in that regard because we are clearly not getting value for money on a project that we ultimately will have to carry out. I would like to think that the committee will keep that in mind as we progress.