Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

I understand and appreciate the Deputy's point. If the Government or I thought that the public transport network in the city, and access to it, were adequate, the sort of investment that we make would not be necessary. By implication, we recognise that serious, substantial and sustained investment in all forms of public transport and roads in Dublin is clearly necessary to deal with its population base in future.

As the Deputy knows, neither I nor anyone else can resolve Dublin's infrastructural problems overnight with a click of the fingers. That is not possible. However, we must make a sustained impact on the difficulties of the city and the greater Dublin area. I would not dismiss — as I am sure the Deputy was not doing — the investment that I have laid out which is part of the process of making a contribution. I would hate to think how much worse it might be if that investment had not been made. I view Dublin in three different specific ways, the first being the internal dynamics of the city centre area itself and those parts that interact with it, with an internal transport solution. Essentially, one wishes to reduce the need to bring cars into the city centre area and make all parts of the city centre as accessible as possible. The second phase is suburban Dublin access and how we deal with it. A substantial amount of resources is going into that. The Luas is but one cog in the big wheel of the ongoing rolling out of infrastructure. The third element is the connectivity from the region around Dublin, which now reaches out to Kildare, including Maynooth, and up to such areas as Drogheda.

Putting the necessary level of infrastructure in place for the future of Dublin will take several years. We can take some decisions that I am examining and discussing with current operators such as Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann, Iarnród Éireann and the Rail Procurement Agency to see how we might consider other ideas in some areas to add to what is being rolled out or enhance the network in whatever way that we can.

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