Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on Budget 2009, and to outline, in particular, how the transport agenda is being advanced by this budget and how the money allocated to the Department of Transport will be spent in 2009.

In general terms, the gross expenditure provision for the Department in 2009 is €3.6 billion, that is, €2.8 billion for capital projects and €725 million for current spending.

The total Exchequer provision for Transport 21 in 2009 is almost €2.4 billion. This year we will allocate: €1.27 billion for public transport, €2.1 billion on roads, €35 million for the aviation sector and regional airports, and €40 million on road safety. Those are the major expenditure headings of the Department. In addition, some €607 million will be spent on improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads around the country.

I make it clear that provisions have been made to continue work on the critical public transport projects of metro north and the DART interconnector. Despite our more constrained economic circumstances we cannot and will not stop planning and providing future public transport solutions. In this budget, the advanced works plus the planning for metro north and for the DART interconnector continue.

When we launched Transport 21 in 2005 we detailed an ambitious investment programme in our transport infrastructure. The individual projects listed under Transport 21 were excellent projects in 2005. They are still excellent projects today and they will be excellent projects in a few years from now. There is no question of cancelling any of the projects despite the more constrained economic circumstances in which we find ourselves today. However, as our economy has not grown this year in line with our expectations, or indeed anything like it, some of the projects, mainly in the roads area, will have to be rolled out at a slower pace than we had originally intended. That is not ideal and not what we wished. However, it is inevitable in the current difficult economic environment.

In these more difficult times it is important to look at how far we have come in recent years. When we took office in 1997 the total capital provision for national roads and public transport, the equivalent to Transport 21, was €306 million, as opposed to the €2.5 billion now. Just €12 million was being spent by the Exchequer on public transport investment, whereas today we are spending just over €900 million.

That money has been well spent. A great deal has been achieved in the intervening period. We are on track to complete the five major inter-urban motorways by the end of 2010. This involves the construction of almost 750 km of new road, approximately 390 km of which is already open to traffic and the remaining 360 km is at construction. One tangible example of the progress we have made is that it is now possible to travel on continuous motorway from Dundalk to Portlaoise. We have revitalised the railways and rescued them from a slow decline over previous decades. Under the railway safety programme we have renewed the physical infrastructure and strengthened the management of safety. We now have one of the youngest inter-city rail fleets in Europe. We also have one of the fastest growing rail facilities in Europe. As services have improved, the public has responded and passenger numbers have grown substantially. Despite the economic downturn, those figures are remaining static at present. There has been no loss to the railways.

There has been major investment in the Dublin suburban rail network. The capacity of the DART system has almost doubled, the original rolling stock has been refurbished, station platforms have been lengthened and much of the infrastructure has been renewed. There has also been a huge investment in new outer suburban rail stock and an expansion in services. The Luas network has proven exceptionally popular with the travelling public and now carries over 28 million passengers each year.

We have made a large investment in bus services. The fleet has been renewed and Dublin Bus capacity has expanded by over a quarter.

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