Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Cuffe suggested at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Environment and Local Government that we should reduce the significant level of investment we are making in motorways and invest those moneys in public transport. He made the valid point that public transport is important if we are to cut our emissions. I remind him that the Government is investing a great deal of money in Transport 21 for that reason. I disagree with his suggestion that the proposed motorway between Dublin and Galway should be put on hold until a Luas system has been developed in Galway. Would the people of Galway, including the members of that city's council and its mayor, agree with that suggestion? I do not think the people who live in the villages on the existing road between Dublin and Galway, which are currently choked with traffic, would agree.

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