Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The one feature of this interconnector that is consistent is that of postponement. It is not just the Minister's fault, as this has been talked about for over 30 years. I remember it being part of the Dublin transportation initiative in the early 1990s, when it was a critical piece of infrastructure. This has a cost in terms of congestion. We need to look at this in the way people in the 19th century looked at the investment in rail; it has to be seen in a very long timeframe. We can see that the costs of insurance are rising, not just for people in the city but around the country. Traffic accidents happen to a greater degree at peak times than at any other time. We have climate obligations which mean we will be handing over hard cash due to a failure to change our habits in terms of moving from our dependence on the car to rail.

This is the big game-changer. This is the project that can really deliver a return. Welcome and all as it is, we are adding an extra line into an already congested scenario where the existing train lines do not operate in an efficient way and do not connect up. This is short-sighted and we are going to pay a price for it into the future, big time.

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