Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

There will be nothing to stop them. Obviously the Minister is not aware that in Dublin 15 there is a contentious rezoning project called Kellystown. The Minister's colleagues wish to rezone hundreds of acres of green belt land to provide for an extra 1,500 high-rise, high-density housing units in front of Luttrellstown Castle. This is an area where 2,500 acres have already been zoned for development. There are 18,000 units currently under starter's orders, fully planned and provided for, with 60,000 further units provided for by zoning. Where is the Green Party in all of this? I do not understand that.

Now that the housing sector is closing down and flattening out because of the current difficulties in the construction industry the Minister's colleagues wish to move away from the already rezoned land, from the developments that have begun at Hantsfield, Tyrellstown and the Phoenix Park race course. Much as their late colleague, Liam Lawlor, did in the 1980s, they wish to leave those developments, already planned for and commenced, and rezone prime green belt land. It is the only such land left in that part of Dublin. As happened with the HSE, people will wake up to discover the potentially dictatorial powers reserved for the Minister in this Bill.

We can examine the authority that the Minister is to appoint. If there is ever to be a directly appointed mayor of Dublin, he or she may take the chairpersonship of the authority. That is not necessarily guaranteed but is at the whim of the Minister. Two members are to be appointed from the Dublin regional authority. Four local authorities, therefore, will have, in total, two elected members as representatives on the board. In addition there will be two members from the mid-east regional authority. That area covers another three counties, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow and gives a total of five public representatives. As far as I can make out, the members of the Dublin regional authority and those of the eastern regional authority representing the counties that surround Dublin, will be nominated by the Minister. This is a HSE-style situation where public accountability will all but vanish in a quango to be controlled and appointed by the Minister.

The Minister has the capacity to put some genuine democracy into this situation. However, it is perfectly possible, as set out in the terms of this Bill that its land use and planning elements could be used by Fianna Fáil to rezone the green belt. If that were to be the case, the powers that have been given and taken by this Minister are excessive and dangerous in terms of the future of Dublin.

I have made numerous submissions to the RPA regarding the proposed metro west line. This is the difficulty with the plenipotentiary powers contained in the Bill. It is difficult for the public to have a serious input into this process. There has been much consultation but it does not necessarily mean the resulting body, empowered by the legislation, will pay any attention to the views of the public.

In the case of the proposed metro west line, a decision in principle seems to have been made by the Railway Procurement Agency to plan the route through several public park areas where there is already relatively good access to the railway line. This proposed route will miss the new, developing areas of Dublin 15 including Huntstown, Hartstown and especially Tyrrelstown and Littlepace. In Littlepace some 12,000 houses and apartments have been built over the past ten years. The area is adjacent to the Minister's constituency and is popularly called Clonee, after the village of the same name which is in County Meath. All this area will be missed by metro west. The proposed metro will not serve the area of Tyrrelstown, which has 2,500 houses built and occupied. Instead it will be routed as far away as possible from there, presumably to allow for more development, rather than serve the people in these new houses who have paid their taxes.

Many of these people are sitting on negative equity. If public transport was routed closer to these areas the situation of people in negative equity, as a result of the actions of the Taoiseach when he botched stamp duty reform, could be ameliorated. The provision of a genuine public consultation process by the RPA would assist the people living on the edge of Dublin city and County Meath whose houses, if they were bought in the past two years, are worth up to 25% less than the purchase price. These poor people are paying mortgages based on the inflated values of two years ago. If public transport benefited these people it is possible the value of the houses might recover somewhat faster than what appears to be the case as a result of the policies of the Government.

My major criticism of this Bill is that, as with the Bill establishing the HSE, buried in the Bill under a benign appearance is the complete lack of public accountability. I hope that, as is the case with the HSE, we will not live to regret the lack of real input by people and serious consultation with local public representatives.

The Minister is proud of never listening to anything anybody has to say. This is the Minister who brought us the fiasco of electronic voting, who knows it all and who will arrogantly refuse to consider the views of the public.

The Minister's colleague, Deputy Frank Fahey, has discussed the possibility of closing access to bus corridors for private cars on a north-south axis within central Dublin. The difficulty for people who use cars is the lack of an alternative.

The railway line from Maynooth and Clonsilla into the city centre is wonderful. It was inherited from Victorian times and the British period of administration. Despite the promises in Transport 21, the improvements for Dublin West in recent years have been meagre in the extreme, even though the area has been a powerhouse of the economy. The people of Dublin West are significant contributors to tax revenue and deserve a fair share of public transport. Many trains serving this area are half trains with four carriages and the largest trains have eight carriages. Compare this with the DART service along the gold coast — some say it is not good enough — which serves some of the most prosperous parts of the city and one finds the trains are more frequent there. The DART service is one of the reasons for greater prosperity in that area. Although public transport could be improved there, it is infinitely better than what applies on the west of the city, where so many people work, pay taxes and helped to make the Celtic tiger.

What plans has the Minister for Transport? The Taoiseach said last week that everything in the national development plan was up for reconsideration, as the public finances are so far off course. What does the Government plan to do with Transport 21? The Minister has already put the time lines for many of the Transport 21 projects back by one year, 18 months and two years. Much of the Transport 21 plan for Dublin West has been long-fingered and rescheduled for 2016 and beyond. Given the inevitable delays in projects under this Government it is reasonable to assume many of these projects will not see the light of day for a long time.

I was a member of Fingal County Council in 1999 when it and Meath County Council agreed in principle to the reopening of the Dunboyne railway line. All the preparatory work was done and then the plan remained in the Department of Transport until the railway order, which is only the first stage, was signed recently.

What are the public transport options for people living in Ratoath, Dunboyne and especially Navan? The number of buses to Dublin city centre from Navan and Trim is very limited and such buses are full and well patronised. This applies to the provision of buses by both the private and public sectors. However, there is nowhere near enough capacity. How can the Minister's colleague, Deputy Frank Fahy, contemplate closing O'Connell Bridge and the bridge at Liberty Hall — the loop-line bridge — to private traffic in the absence of a genuine public transport alternative?

There are people in Dublin West queueing to use public transport and crammed into the trains like cattle. The Clonsilla train is often called the "Calcutta Express", because of over-crowding. Some women have to quit using the train after three or four months of pregnancy such is the level of over-crowding. This train stops regularly to allow people who have fainted to get off and such people look after themselves at the stations. Many civil and public servants working in the Houses of the Oireachtas know this and people tell me about it all the time. This happens to people I know, people in this building and their families. The Minister for Transport has had nothing to say on this matter.

What are the options for people living further out in County Meath? These people drive to such places as Portersgate in Dublin West and park there. This results in rows with people living in estates such as Portersgate in Dublin 15 because there are no park-and-ride facilities. This is because the Dublin Transportation Office has held, as an article of faith, that park-and-ride is a bad concept as it means a split journey for motorists, partly by car and partly by train. It is almost like an ideological belief in communism, with transport planners not allowing park-and-ride facilities.

The only park-and-ride facility planned for west Dublin is at Pace, near Ratoath, County Meath. However, it is not listed to commence construction for years. In the meantime, in areas like west Dublin, traffic is the worst feature of people's lives. The data show a reduction in the volume of car traffic between the canals in Dublin city, with marginally improved journey times. In the suburbs, however, particularly in west Dublin, and in parts of Meath and Louth, journey times from one village to another or from one part of County Dublin to another, such as Castleknock to Blanchardstown, are now taking vast amounts of time.

The Minister has many questions to answer in regard to this Bill. It will not necessarily be the panacea it was claimed to be. I am particularly concerned about the implications of these proposals for Dublin's heritage. As far as I can see, St. Stephen's Green will effectively be destroyed for up to a decade. That level of destruction is not evident in public works projects undertaken in cities elsewhere in the world. Dublin owes much of its economy to tourism and the St. Stephen's Green area is central to that. I urge the Minister to take some control over the activities of planners and officials. We must plan and organise with the interests of ordinary people at heart, those who live and work in the Dublin region and those who visit it. This can be done properly but it cannot be done in the dictatorial fashion implied in many sections of the Bill.

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