Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I am delighted to have the opportunity of speaking on this legislation. I never thought I would see the day that a Fianna Fáil Government would do something as practical and as logical as establish a single public body to take charge of transport in the greater Dublin area.

Fianna Fáil under late Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, when he came to power in 1987, abolished the original transport authority set up by the Labour-Fine Gael Government in the 1980s. It has taken nearly a quarter of a century for Fianna Fáil to see the light again. Even now the new Dublin transport authority will only be responsible for surface transport. Inexplicably, the metro, which is run by the Railway Procurement Agency, RPA, will not be included in the authority. We therefore will have a Dublin transport authority for all surface transport in the greater Dublin area, but no authority for underground transport. It appears to be an Irish solution to an Irish problem, as the former Taoiseach Charles Haughey, would have said. I can imagine the problem we will probably continue to have as regards integrated ticketing. I do not know how many deadlines we have had in this respect, but with two separate bodies now dealing with transport, it will be the next millennium before it is sorted out.

No progress at all is being made. Like the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, I travel by public transport when I go down the country. I have been using Iarnród Éireann somewhat regularly over the recent weeks. I purchase the ticket on-line, get a printout and reference number and turn up at either Connolly or Heuston, where, when one presents the piece of paper it is not recognised. One has to use one's credit card in a particular machine, the purpose of which is to allocate a ticket. However, one does not get a ticket by quoting the reference number or producing the computer printout.

Can one imagine any business person whose office gives him or her a ticket to travel somewhere in Ireland, which has been paid for by the company credit card? Then he or she turns up at the station and is expected to produce a personal credit card in order to get the ticket. All of this is a very cumbersome procedure because one can effectively get one's aeroplane ticket on-line — through the private sector — before going to the airport. One has only to insert it into a machine when one is dealing with one's seating allocation or luggage before a flight.

To make matters worse, none of the machines at Heuston station works. If one is in a hurry and travelling to Galway or Cork, having ostensibly bought one's ticket on-line for the sake of speeding up the system, one must try to bludgeon one's way onto the train because the machine will not work — and the ticket collector will not accept one's reference number or piece of paper. One must go back to the ticket office, queue up and get a ticket. That is absolutely scandalous and outrageous, yet that is as far as we have got. We are not even integrating the ticket system.

It is a matter of having a coherent functioning ticket system that is not about queuing up at a counter in the fashion that has been going on for centuries. That is a bad start indeed. To return to the RPA issue, why has it been omitted? The ostensible reason for this is indeed very hollow. The Minister said in his speech today: "The absorption of the RPA by the authority could jeopardise the ongoing public private partnership procurement process in respect of metro north, which is at a critical and sensitive juncture. Tender documents were issued to the four bidding consortia, just last week." All of this is true, but after a quarter of a century of waiting, this sounds an astonishing reason for omitting one major agency of transport. Even it were true — as I presume it is — why is there no provision in the Bill for incorporating the RPA into the authority at a later stage? The only reason given is that we are at a critical stage of procurement for tenders at the present time. When this is all over, in a year or two, why does the Minister not say he will introduce an amendment to include the RPA into the authority? It does not make sense to wait all that time before we produce a greater Dublin transport authority, for which we have been waiting since the last one was abolished by the then Taoiseach Charles Haughey, when he came to power in 1987 — and now a decision has been made to omit a very important agency, the RPA, which is involved in all of the underground transport in this city. It is not a very auspicious start for the authority in this respect.

I was delighted to hear the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh say he would preserve the wildlife habitat that is St. Stephen's Green at the present time. He will not allow it to be interfered with. However, I note from the Minister's remarks that St. Stephen's Green is subject to preservation under the 1877 Act — and it cannot be used for any purpose, other than as a park. Massive development work in terms of the metro and the interconnector are certainly going to interfere with that, so that is why there will be an amendment. I understand that the park in Mountjoy Square is preserved under similar legislation. I did not have time to check, but I should not be surprised if Parnell Square, which is going to have another major metro station, has similar underpinning legislation dating back to the 19th century — where the curtilage and park area of those squares were preserved specifically under the legislation for the purposes intended and could not be used in any other way. Perhaps the Minister might check that out before the bulldozers are brought into Parnell Square.

By the way, I am delighted Parnell Square will have a station pretty much in the heart of the city. However, the next station for the metro north will be at the Mater. I am one of those very much in favour of metro north despite Deputy Mansergh's remarks to the effect that there appear to be many vested interests opposing the line to the airport. I was not aware that this was the case, although there was much concern by residents about the direction of part of the line, the depth of the tunnel and the necessary protective measures that needed to be put in place. The Mater hospital is a very appropriate place for what will be a major station, but the RPA has decided there will be just one entrance — on the North Circular Road. Of course, the entrance to the Mater hospital is on Eccles Street, and that will cause very considerable disadvantage in many ways. My suggestion is that there should be a joint entrance there.

Park and ride facilities are key to all of this, an issue that to date has not been addressed. I note that the metro north will not go into the airport per se but will stop about half a mile away, so that there will need to be a shuttle service right into the heart of the airport. We are facing a crisis at present in and around Croke Park, where the local authority has draft by-laws out for consultation in terms of residents only parking on major event days. These are becoming more frequent, of course, so eventually there will be a cordon around Croke Park, where nobody will be allowed to park. It will be in the region of up to two miles in some areas. At the same time we will not have any park and ride facilities. This means the outer suburbs will be peppered with commuter traffic coming to various events in Croke Park, rather than the inner parts of the city, and this needs to be addressed in terms of the plans for the greater Dublin area.

I am delighted to see the establishment of the Dublin transport authority. There should be just one authority and no exceptions. We must run the city's transport system in a single-handed fashion. Failure to do so has caused the major problems that have arisen to date. I hope the Minister will take on board an amendment to subsume the Railway Procurement Agency into the authority.

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