Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

First, like most Members, I welcome this Bill although everyone has reservations, myself included, about the Dublin transport authority. I am the Vice Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and during the past 12 months its members, including Deputy Áine Brady and others, listened to all the stakeholders. There are as many views on how the future development of Dublin traffic should be handled as there are days in the year. Everyone has a different view and a co-ordinated approach is required. If Dublin's traffic management is to be successful in future, it must be implemented via the Dublin transport authority — I will revert to this point shortly. While it could prove to be a poisoned chalice in the future, at least it constitutes a genuine effort to bring together under a single umbrella all the stakeholders, each of which sincerely believes itself to have the only show in town. That is the great problem associated with competing demands and the existing competition.

There is no harm in painting a picture that demonstrates the importance of this issue and the extent and depth to which the Dublin transport authority must deliver in the years ahead. The last census of population revealed that the population within the functional area that will be given to this authority, if one includes the counties of Kildare, Wicklow and Meath with the greater Dublin area, is 1.5 million people. Moreover, this population is increasing yearly. Catering for such an increase is in itself a daunting task because problems will arise wherever one places such a density of human beings, irrespective of whether it is in the field of education or transport. In addition, statistical projections suggest that in 20 years' time, there will be exactly twice as many cars registered to people in Ireland than is the case at present. In other words, unless something is done, there will be double the number of cars getting in one's way along the quays in 20 years' time.

Speaking from the perspective of an Opposition Member — I often made this point — some of the measures taken regarding Dublin transport in the past five or ten years have been highly positive. The Luas has been outstanding and the port tunnel is fine traffic infrastructure. The problem, however, is that because of the figures I have just outlined, one is obliged to run to standstill as an ever-increasing number of cars are descending on the city. One does not need to be Einstein to know this.

While I am not a native of this city, it is the nation's capital and I have been using it for the past 30 years. I can never understand a few fundamental matters, some of which are minor. For instance, I fail to understand the reason that a breakdown of a lorry in the morning between the city centre and Heuston Station has the capacity to hold up traffic for up to an hour and a half. I cannot understand why it is not simply moved out of the way and got rid of. That is the peak period during which people try to get to work and such breakdowns give rise to all sorts of commotion. That only is a very minor matter. Moreover, Members will have noticed that the manner in which Dublin's traffic is controlled during the eight weeks or so before Christmas makes it run somewhat better. Given the huge problems that exist in the city, I fail to understand the reason such a regime cannot be run every day of the year while all the basic infrastructure projects under Transport 21 are being dreamed up and, one hopes, eventually implemented.

One fundamental matter can be discerned by anyone who has eyes in his or her head, namely, no matter what happens in future, the quays and all the other arterial routes into the city centre will never become wider. Consequently, there is absolute competition per square foot on every single inch of ground in the city centre. There is competition for it every day of the week between buses, cars, lorries, pedestrians and so on. Either Members as legislators or the Dublin transport authority must decide who will be given priority in that competition. Colleagues on all sides have been talking about congestion charges and similar initiatives, and I am certain that if one waits long enough, something like this will happen. Certainly, as was mentioned previously, no matter how wide the M50, the N6 from Galway or the other arterial roads into Dublin become, they will be filled from 7. 30 a.m. until 9.30 a.m. every morning. It is like water pouring into a bottle.

The point at issue is what one should do with the traffic when it reaches a certain point. I always have believed — this has been discussed at length at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport — that an interception system must be put in place. In other words, the traffic coming off the arterial routes must be intercepted. I do not know how far from Dublin one should do this as I am not an expert in this regard. I refer to a mechanism such as park and ride systems. This problem is not confined to Dublin as it also exists in Cork, Galway and elsewhere, albeit to a much lesser degree. The members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport, together with its Chairman, Deputy Frank Fahey, visited a park and ride facility in Essex, England, two months ago. The town it was in was not nearly as big as Dublin so the idea might be more appropriate to Cork or Galway but I could see elements that would work well in Dublin.

There is psychology involved in people's relationships with their cars. People feel safe and independent in the bubble that is the car; it is their domain where no one can interfere with them and nobody can tell them what to do. One need not talk to anyone in one's car. Due to the fact that the car takes people from home to work, asking them to use it less is a huge psychological job. There is no new science behind this theory. There are 1,000 car parking spaces at the park and ride facility in Essex and those involved have found that people approaching the facility feel it will take around ten minutes to park the car and walk to where the bus should be. The operators told us that if a bus is waiting as one approaches the park and ride facility, one is more likely to avail of it because one has more confidence in the service. That is reasonable human nature. However, the next piece of psychology applies to the bus itself. It may be waiting for customers but there is no point taking it if it will hit a snarl up of traffic half a mile from where one works.

We return to the competition for space I mentioned. If competition for space is part of the system, quality bus corridors must be given priority. No matter what a traffic light shows, the sensor on a bus should ensure it and its 60 to 80 occupants fly through. In this way priority is given to people who leave their cars at park and ride facilities and poor motorists will be left to watch the bus fly by. Problems exist in this system, however, because one must ensure that once the bus enters the city it can bring people to their places of work. There is no point in bringing a person within a mile of his or her workplace on a cold, frosty morning and then leaving him or her to use shank's mare for the rest of the journey. People will not do this.

I have no doubt that there will eventually be a congestion charge in this city. However, it will not come into being until people are given alternatives and places they can safely park their cars. People must see that it is in their best interests to do this. There will be 1,000 good reasons for doing this in the years to come because the price of oil reached $130 per barrel today. Economists have told me that in two or three years it will reach $200 per barrel. The price has doubled in the past 12 months so how would one dispute this forecast? Given issues such as energy conservation, carbon footprints and other matters I do not have time to go into, if ever there was an opportune time to do something like this, although it should have been done before, this is it.

I think the Luas is a great system for those lucky enough to live on the route, but it is important that it be connected. We all hope 30 million people will use Dublin Airport in five years' time but one can imagine the problems that will ensue if the metro, or a different system, does not service the facility. There will be gridlock from the city centre to Dublin Airport.

I believe there will be an integrated approach to transport. We have not brought about integrated ticketing and this has been a huge bugbear for me for years. I have used Iarnród Éireann for many years to travel from Ballinasloe to Dublin and the service is beginning to improve but sometimes, at the weekend, it is horrendous. It is a good service on ordinary working days. When I buy a three or four day return ticket at Ballinasloe or Athlone, why can the price of the bus from Heuston Station to here not be included? This should be simple. The strange thing is, this is available to those who come to Dublin on a day return ticket from Ballinasloe or Athlone but not those who come on a three, four or 30 day return ticket. This is a long way from integrated ticketing. My understanding of integrated ticketing is that whatever mode of public transport one uses, one ticket will take one to one's destination. We are a million miles from such a scenario. The Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Deputy Noel Ahern, may not agree with that but, either way, integrated ticketing is not available and we seem to be a long way from achieving it.

I have some problems with the Dublin transport authority and most of them have been well aired in the past few hours, but I want to add my tuppence worth. I am sick to the teeth of the mechanism of accountability to the Dáil that exists for the HSE and other organisations. This is not an original thought and my colleagues have spoken of it for months and years. Why are we going to create a similar animal in the DTA? I can see myself in a couple of years making representations on behalf of constituents of mine in east Galway who have difficulties with public transport in Dublin and cannot access a hospital. I will put down a parliamentary question to the Minister for Transport on the matter because I am elected, like everyone else here, to do a particular job for my constituents. This is a democratic Parliament that is accountable to the people. Under Transport 21, we have been told some €14 billion will be provided for Dublin's transport system over the coming years and there will be a great deal of taxpayers' money involved. When I put down my parliamentary question for the Minister for Transport in a few years I guarantee he or she, or the Ceann Comhairle, will write back to me and state the Dáil has no responsibility for the matter. Speaking as someone who has been here for some time, that is a bad day's work. We will be on the slippery slope.

Some ten, 12 or 15 years ago it was the in thing to take responsibility away from politicians and whoever was in Government, but the HSE has shown this is a bad policy for everyone. The creation of this authority, as it stands, will also be bad policy because if a project is to stand up, it should stand up in this House. Let the new director general of the Dublin transport authority sit in this House where the civil servants sit today. We should allow that facility somehow. If there are important administrative and future policy matters to discuss, other Deputies and I should be able to ask the Minister for Transport questions as he will have ultimate responsibility. It has been suggested that the authority will be connected to the Oireachtas through various committees, including the Committee of Public Accounts — the authority could not sidestep the Committee of Public Accounts no matter how it tried. It holds every other State organisation to account. Obviously the Comptroller and Auditor General would have a say in what happens there anyway. It is no big deal in this particular Bill.

I notice, if my briefing note is correct, that the DTA will be answerable with regard to the Freedom of Information Act. The note then goes on to say that the authority itself will decide, in its wisdom, which information will be released. I do not like this and I smell a rat. All of a sudden there will be a raft of confidential information that this House and ordinary members of the public will not be able to access. It is against this background that I genuinely believe that no matter what the authority does it should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

The Minister mentioned that, initially at least, the Railway Procurement Agency will not be under the umbrella of this transport authority. I cannot understand this. In the future there will be competition for space between road and rail, as I mentioned earlier. With regard to the proposal contained in Transport 21, the ability to carry substantial numbers of people by rail from Heuston Station to St. Stephen's Green in the centre of the city is of major importance. The Acting Chairman knows of the countless thousands of people who converge on this city every day at Heuston Station. If we cannot get these people to the city centre efficiently, it will become a major problem. The only way we can do this is to continue the railway line either underground or above ground.

A great deal of debate has centred around the input of Dublin Bus to the "big dig" that is to start in the near future. I can imagine the traffic problems that will occur when the big dig starts, as we already have major problems even before it starts. As a number of my colleagues mentioned earlier, I can only hope that when the Dublin transport authority is up and running, situations in which the same street is dug up four or five times in a year will occur less often. There is no point in saying I hope it will never happen again, as I am sure it will, but it might happen less often. Given the various agencies that will work under the umbrella of the Dublin transport authority, I sincerely hope this tendency will be overcome to some degree. Problems such as these raise the blood pressure of motorists every morning and evening. The smallest hole is dug for what I have no doubt are very good reasons, to allow utility providers access, for example, but, gallingly, the same hole is opened the following month and again thereafter. Why do we not have a more integrated approach? I assume that with the introduction of the Bill this will be less likely to happen.

I hope that for the sake of everyone in Ireland, not just those in Dublin, we will see a better approach to the provision of a more efficient traffic system for Dublin. The idea of extending the authority's remit to counties outside Dublin is of major importance. Not long ago we met with the county managers of the counties concerned. They are doing a good job on their own but I got the distinct impression that one of them did not know what the other was doing. In my own county and city of Galway a few years ago, I certainly found that neither Galway City Council nor Galway County Council knew what the other was doing from a traffic management point of view, although they were both within a single county. This has been the major deficiency in Dublin transport over the years. I hope the Dublin transport authority will have the necessary clout to stop the faction fighting and the moral authority to ensure that actions are taken in a co-ordinated way. I can only hope for everyone's sake that it is successful.

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