Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)

One of the most striking things from the "Prime Time" programme earlier this week about the M50 was Transport Infrastructure Ireland basically accepting that it could not fix the congestion problems on the M50. The M50 has grown to capacity and there is literally no room to expand its capacity right now. For me, that certainly makes the case for Dublin. I recognise other Deputies have spoken about the challenges they face in other parts of Ireland but as a Dublin TD, I just want to speak about Dublin for a moment. For Dublin, our solution has to be public transport based. That is why I was so disappointed in the transport plan last week to see that move away from a 2:1 spend on public transport versus roads back to a 1:1 spend because it fundamentally fails to acknowledge that for Dublin and large parts of our country, it is the investment in public transport that is going to get us out of the congestion mess we are in at the moment. I would argue that the consequence of that change is related to the points I made earlier. There is not the money to build Finglas Luas in the next five-year period. There is not the money to build DART+ South West in the next five-year period. That is why they are being bounced into the 2030 to 2050 period. It is because that decision was made. We have a certain amount of cake in the public transport budget and rather than going two thirds to one third on public transport to roads, we are reducing it by a quarter, and that means fewer public transport projects can ultimately be delivered. Therefore, I would just like an understanding in terms of the Department's perspective. How is it going to ultimately deliver the solution for commuters in Dublin city and all the surrounding commuter counties who are going in and out of Dublin every day if it is deliberately choosing to deprioritise investment in public transport?