Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy has asked what can be done in the short term to cope with the enormous amount of additional traffic we have had in this city — about 800,000 more vehicles than we had some years ago.

The Government has approved funding of €30 million for the purchase by Dublin Bus of 100 additional buses. A large number of them will arrive in January, which is in the short term. There will be a further upgrading of the garage facilities at Broadstone, as well as the new station at the airport, both of which will affect the Deputy's constituency. Dublin Bus hopes to enter many of these buses into service by the end of January.

The bulk of this year's expenditure is earmarked for the delivery of quality bus corridors, which are designed to reduce travel time for passengers, improve bus performance and improve the quality of the public transport experience. Again, much of this has either already happened or is happening. There will also be the proposed Dublin Transport Authority procurement of approximately 100 buses from the private sector to provide services on new routes, many of which will serve the new estates of west Dublin. This is to be done by competitive tendering. While I do not have the date for this to hand, it is part of the initiative to facilitate the entry of private operators by awarding franchises to operate buses for 15% of services, which the Government negotiated with the trade unions.

The Dublin Bus fleet covers all of the areas mentioned by Deputy Joe Higgins and has been substantially increased and renewed in line with the commitments under the national development plan, thus reflecting the company's major role as the key transport operator. While there are longer-term initiatives, the Deputy did not ask me to go into them. I refer to projects such as metro west, the frequencies on the train line and the new stations in Dublin West, some of which will open shortly.

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