Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

History tells us that if we ask the NRA whether it is a good idea to build a road, it will inevitably say "Yes". As it is a road building agency, its function is to build roads. The Minister's Department should plan transport in this city. I contend we have no planning of a proper transport system for the city as evidenced by the fact that much as one might think of the southside as the land of milk and honey, it does not work because the road system the Government has put in place does not function. I do not want to know what the NRA's answer to a question would be because I know what it would say. I want to know when the Minister's Department will begin to provide joined-up thinking in transport and make a decision as to whether public transport or yet more roads will provide a solution which works.

Does the Minister agree that the plan to widen the M50 to an eight-lane highway will not work, as the Taoiseach acknowledges? Road building cannot solve the transport problems of this city as traffic merely increases as the capacity of a road expands. When will we learn that lesson and begin to invest in public transport instead of roads? When will we stop allowing the National Roads Authority to set the country's transport policy?

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