Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on the second anniversary of Transport 21. I would like to be in a position to agree with the Minister's positive assessment, and that of Government Members such as Deputy Finian McGrath, on the progress of Transport 21. However, there has been significant delay to 11 major projects in the plan, highlighting once again the mess Fianna Fáil has made of major projects and the clear result of uncosted, unrealistic plans.

A mere 24 months ago, Fianna Fáil announced Transport 21 with no cost-benefit analysis, no detailed costings and a completely unrealistic timetable. It was little more than a political con job, the result of which is delays to a third of the projects. These delays will inevitably lead to a rise in costs which, in turn, will lead to further delays and even to some projects being abandoned. Fine Gael pointed out that the forecast completion timetable for Transport 21 was unrealistic from the beginning. The simplest project to date serves as an example, the joining of the red and green Luas lines: this project still has no commencement date.

The Minister's uncosted and unrealistic plans for transport have a clear result, the suffering of commuters on a daily basis. It now seems that Fianna Fáil was more concerned with delivering itself back into Government than delivering commuters to their destination on time. Deputy Damien English has consistently called on the Minister for Transport to facilitate the early opening of the Navan rail link to help the thousands of commuters in Meath and to remove thousands of cars from Dublin's streets. Our roads are already congested but the Minister is more interested in getting tolls from commuters than developing proper transport infrastructure.

The Government is not serious about reforming transport in Ireland away from the car and towards sustainable public transport links, such as the rail link to Navan. The Government's commitment to re-opening that link looks increasingly shaky. One would think that with the Minister for Transport being from the constituency, he would push the project. The hard-pressed commuter, however, is suffering as a result of Government inaction.

The previous Minister, Deputy Martin Cullen, saw his roads plan go over budget by a staggering €12 billion and fall four years behind schedule. It was supposed to finish last year. How, therefore, can we trust Fianna Fáil on transport? The cost of the roads programme in the last national development plan rocketed from €5.6 billion to more than €18 billion and it is still not finished. It will not be completed until 2010. Then along came Transport 21, which was made up of many press releases and a few maps. Transport 21 has no costings or target dates to allow the Fianna Fáil-led Government to be held to account. It is no surprise it was met with widespread indifference when it was launched two years ago.

The previous Minister for Transport, Deputy Cullen, presided over the Dublin port tunnel, which came in €500 million over budget, at €752 million. The tunnel, however, has brought little relief to the rest of the city and added to congestion on the M50. The M50 has cost more than €1 billion and taken more than 20 years to build, without including the welcome and necessary upgrade work currently under way.

In the past ten years Dublin has ground to a halt. The average speed in Dublin city has fallen to 14 km/h, slower than the old horse and cart. Traffic congestion costs the city €650 million each year. Nearly 60% of people in the greater Dublin area rely on the car to get to work because there is often no public transport alternative. Only 15% of commuters use the bus, with fewer than 9% using the trains. Why were the extra buses that were proposed not delivered? What happened to integrated ticketing which has cost €13 million so far with nothing to show for it?

Fine Gael in Government would move immediately to provide 200 extra buses while opening the Dublin bus market to competition. The public service obligation would be available to public and private service operators to ensure loss making routes were maintained. New bus services and bus timetables would be devised to feed buses into the metro and Luas services. Moreover, new housing estates would be covered, orbital routes would be operated and non-stop services from the commuter belt would be provided.

The Dublin transport authority Bill is sitting on the Minister for Transport's desk. However, it was finalised last April, which is not good enough. Fine Gael in government would set up the Dublin transport authority immediately as it is essential to better traffic management. The absence of a single strong and co-ordinated body to drive forward projects is largely responsible for the appalling state of Dublin traffic. The Dublin transport authority would launch an integrated public transport system within Dublin. It would deliver metro and Luas lines and would synchronise them with bus services. It would help identify and purchase park and ride sites throughout the city on the outskirts of the M50. These would feed into local buses and to non-stop bus routes on a central corridor into the city centre, as well as dedicated bus routes that would reduce some of the predicted daily traffic congestion on the M50.

Fine Gael also would recruit and train motorcycle-based civilian road traffic officers to support the work of the Garda traffic corps. We would make the M50 work. Thus far, the deal to buy out the M50 toll has brought no relief to motorists. All the revenues accrued must be put immediately into early upgrades of the M50. In addition, there must be a move towards electronic tolling and immediate agreement to buy out and raise the toll barrier.

My constituency of Dublin North-East lacks seriously a proper public service. No bus service is available for the people of Clonshaugh, who class themselves as the forgotten people. In addition, a promise was made in the past to provide a Luas service that would pass through Coolock to service the north side of Dublin. However, this has been abandoned. Moreover, the new DART station at Clongriffin was meant to open after 1,000 people had moved into the area. At present, more than 2,000 new residents live there without a DART station and these people have no option but to bring their car to work. I was advised recently that the DART station will not open in Clongriffin until 2009, which is completely unacceptable.

I live in hope that the Government will learn from all the projects that have overrun in terms of time and budget. I refer in particular to those projects in recent years that have cost taxpayers millions of euro. In addition, the Government should establish immediately the Dublin transport authority, which will help get the city moving and will be to the betterment of the people of Dublin.

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