James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

I will draw more parallels with that august body later. I return to the issue of creating the dislocate between those who suffer the consequences and those who make the decisions. Recently Malahide Community Forum did a survey asking the people of Malahide what they would like to see happen. One of the issues that arose was the need for a feeder bus to the train station. There is an excellent DART service and they are pleased with it but access is a problem. A feeder bus would allow people to get there and would free up the car park because people would not have to drive. People from Swords have to travel over and they need car parking spaces, but the car park is insufficient. I mentioned the Malahide Community Forum because it is democracy at work. A Fingal County Council official came to that meeting and has taken on board what the survey showed and what the people said. He will bring it back to the council. He knows if he did not do so the county councillors would bring it to the council and raise the issue. Fingal County Council is very proactive in many areas. I will return to this aspect.

The Dublin transport authority envisaged will be answerable to nobody, will visit the committee only quarterly or twice a year — I am not sure when or how often — and give, judging by others, a sermon followed by very limited questions and answers through which one gets no real satisfaction for one's constituents or concerns. This will be a retrograde step and I plead with the Minister not to take it. He should create an authority with public representation that is answerable to the Oireachtas and will report directly to him and allow him to answer parliamentary questions on transport instead of sending them out to the authority. This happens with questions to the Minister for Health and Children which are sent to the HSE and answered in weeks or much longer. There is a sense that a game goes on whereby one receives a partial answer and has to ask another question. It goes on and on and by the time one gets the ultimate answer the issue has been resolved by some other means.

It is important to say that what we need and have lacked is a reliable, accessible public transport system; otherwise, people do not use it and cannot be blamed for that. If somebody has to get to work, attend appointments during the day and come back, he or she needs a reliable service that is interlinked. It is clear that this has not been on the Government's mind. The two Luas lines that do not join up is a classic case of this Government's unjoined thinking. This arises in other areas such as schools, housing, planning, health facilities and justice requirements for additional gardaí.

I have already mentioned the absence of a feeder bus in Malahide. The same problem pertains in Lusk, which waited six years for a footpath so people could walk safely to the train station, a mile from the village. A feeder bus was provided on a trial basis before the general election by one of the candidates. We could have a very successful situation where people could depend on getting the train on time without having to drive. The necessity for those car journeys would be eliminated and this would improve our carbon footprint.

I want to raise another issue that relates to health and is not specific to Dublin but is important to the country. My colleague, Deputy Crawford, referred to how Monaghan had its accident and emergency department closed and 17 people lost their lives travelling from Monaghan to Cavan General Hospital in an 18-month period. The road is appalling. If services are removed, they must be replaced with services that deliver better care, and the access to those services must be realistic. If the road infrastructure is put in place, that would address one issue. The same argument could be made about Nenagh, Ennis and Limerick and the unavailability of parking at the hospital there. I do not want to digress into health but just to mention that if people are to lose an aspect of a local service it is important there be a reasonable transport and road system to get them to hospital in an emergency when life is at stake. We all know about the "golden hour" which is predicated on transport time.

I turn to an issue the Government first brought to light before the 2002 election. With much ado, it promised a metro for north Dublin. It promised it again before the 2007 election. Throughout the week I was out canvassing at the trains and supermarkets of Balbriggan, Rush, Lusk, Skerries and Swords, and people are coming to me and telephoning me on a daily basis with real concerns that the metro is being postponed or put on hold. I take this opportunity to ask the Minister directly when the metro will come, whether delays are expected and whether there is a problem with the funding. This is a national infrastructural project that should not be delayed in any way. The Indecon report recently commissioned and undertaken showed that 67,000 new jobs could be created as a consequence of the metro coming to Dublin North. This is at a time when we have lost 30,000 jobs in the first three months of the year. This would be a very serious blow for Dublin North and a serious breach of trust by the Government with the people to whom it was promised, not just before the last election but before the election in 2002.

Contingent on this is the development of Swords, the population of which could grow to 100,000 people. Through the proactive management of Fingal County Council, there have been discussions with one of the universities about bringing a university to the area and there are discussions with others about bringing hospitals to the area. This could greatly enhance the quality of life for people in Dublin North. The availability of proper park and ride facilities would do away with the necessity for many of the cars to come into Dublin city from Dublin North, where the population is growing all the time. I hope the Minister in closing this debate will specifically answer this question on the metro. It is causing serious concern among the people of Dublin North and, I am sure, all the way down the line into Dublin city.

These are all issues which a Dublin transport authority could address. It is a terrible shame it has been set up in such a fashion that we must vote against it. If it were set up in a proper democratic fashion, having learned the lessons we have learned from the HSE, we would be on the same side of this argument as the Minister and would support him in forming this important new authority for Dublin and its people.

Congestion at Dublin Airport is becoming ever more problematic, with problems of access and egress. With more and more passengers expected to pass through Dublin Airport, this will just get worse unless serious work is done to improve the road system. An example of this is the work on the M50 and the trouble it is causing. My understanding, from Deputy Varadkar, is that within three to five years the M50 will be chock-a-block again unless a further route is developed — I am referring to the Bremore route from the proposed port just outside Balbriggan. IKEA has stalled its development until the M50 works are finished. That is how lack of planning impacts negatively on our economy.

The outer orbital route is a matter close to the Minister's heart. We need this route from Bremore port to connect through Naas to the other motorways. This will keep away all the traffic that comes from the north on to the M50, which does not want or need to be there and which causes major congestion. As Deputy Crawford noted, it is the country's biggest car park. It could take an hour to travel 60 miles from some part of the country and, on arriving at the M50, take another hour to travel six miles. The carbon imprint of this must be such that the Green Party cannot be happy. I put it to that party, as a supporter of public transport, that the metro needs its absolute, unequivocal support. The funding for this must not be interfered with in any way and must be expedited.

I referred to the M1 and the additional traffic coming into the city. We need a third lane on the M1 sooner rather than later. Will we wait until the congestion is so bad that we have to take remedial action and disrupt traffic all over again?

This is a time of economic downturn, particularly in the construction industry, which is one of the highly skilled industries in the country and was honed in a major way in the boom of the past ten years. Why let all those workers go and let all that skill and knowledge lie dormant? Why not turn it to focus on our infrastructure and build our schools, health facilities and, most importantly, roads and rail system? This is the time to do it. The expertise and the labour are there. Let us use them productively rather than lose them to emigration.

I wish to turn to the ludicrous situation where public bus services, in particular the 41X service, are not allowed to use the port tunnel. There was a public meeting on this issue in Swords a couple of weeks ago. People are outraged at the idea that taxpayers' money built the tunnel but a public bus cannot use it, which is the height of folly and beggars belief. It is a conundrum I cannot get my head around. I cannot understand why public transport cannot use it as well as a licensed transporter.

See this speech in context