Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I have two questions for the Taoiseach. Does he recall the speech made by the Minister for Finance on 20 October? This was a 12 point plan the Minister for Finance announced to counteract the litany of waste, misspending and maladministration that had given rise to the controversies in the public domain before that. He announced a major initiative, a 12 point plan, point three of which was that there would be ex ante evaluations including economic cost benefit appraisal for all projects above €30 million.

I presume that as a result there has been that kind of ex ante evaluation and cost benefit analysis of yesterday's plan. On the assumption the Taoiseach has complied with the Minister's requirement, when will he put it into the public domain and publish it? For example, I would like to see the costings of the superior plan for a metro system to Dublin Airport, as compared to a spur line to the railway or DART system. I would like to hear the arguments that set out that the metro is the superior system. There are several other things I would like to see supported by the documents. When will the Taoiseach put these into the public domain and lay them before the House?

On the subject of the buses, the Minister announced he had provided for 20 additional buses. I asked for information from CIE because I have been looking for more than 20 new buses for my constituency and I was shocked by that statement which he repeated last night on "Prime Time". The information provided to me by CIE is as follows, that the national development programme, as referred to by the Taoiseach, between 2000 and 2006, provided for an additional 275 buses but only 93 were provided and none at all since 2001. I further find that CIE made a submission to the Department of Transport for 210 additional buses between 2006 and 2008 and not 20 buses. The Minister, Deputy Cullen, as brazen as you like, said last night in a speech to which the Taoiseach referred, "However I am conscious that Dublin has short term immediate needs for 20 additional buses in the coming weeks and I will immediately sanction these".

See this speech in context