Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

It has been done a number of times. I was even present on one occasion at which a trial was conducted. The engineers involved are the same people who have undertaken the biggest infrastructural job in Europe recently and their view is that doing so would accomplish very little. While a car going straight through might benefit, on the interchanges and on a number of the other points, they believe it would create far more difficulty. All the advice was to finish the Naas Road and the tunnel, perform the upgrade and get rid of the toll barriers. We have followed a consistent policy that is now approximately three years from completion.

I readily admit that the difficulty arose because 20 years ago, when negotiating the contract, people believed there would be 25,000 cars by 2010 whereas there are now 100,000 cars. They did not envisage 7,000 trucks and thought there would be approximately 2,000 trucks. They did not envisage the extent of the increase. However, this happens throughout the world. It happens in respect of airports and rail lines and people continually upgrade them.

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