Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is precisely because we want to make a contribution to making it easier for people to get around that we are funding and putting in place Luas Cross City. It will deliver an additional 10 million journeys per year on our Luas network to take the number from approximately 30 million to approximately 40 million. While that will make a contribution to movement within the city, the Deputy is also asking me about how we get people to the city. Of course, that is why a project like Dart underground could make a significant contribution to increasing substantially the capacity on our rail network by allowing more services to run to our main city centre train stations.

While the Deputy is correct that congestion is imposing a growing cost on the economy, of which I am well aware, the hard funding must be secured to deliver projects. While this is a project that would make a contribution as currently designed, it has an associated cost of many billions of euro and, as such, I must weigh it up directly against, for example, the road project Deputy Catherine Murphy was pressing me for earlier to support the growth of the Millennium Business Park. We have to make choices about what can be done.

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