Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

That is continuing against the backdrop of this country's abysmal failure to meet its climate change obligations. I am cognisant that a city cannot be run on cars. The Minister lives on the north side, although he is not as far north as me. People who live on routes on the north side that are not on the DART line are overwhelmingly reliant on private vehicles such as cars because the bus transport network is so poor. It seems that the new rapid bus system will share road infrastructure that is already over-burdened and crippled. That will not make commuters any more rapid. The roads they drive on will not get any bigger. They will not be able to move more quickly. The proposed new system is to be delivered at an absolutely enormous cost.

The Minister is aware that the city came to an utter standstill last week when a fire took place in the port tunnel. People on the north side, in particular, were left virtually abandoned. It is in that context that the Minister said yesterday that the proposed DART underground project will be put on hold. It has been suggested that the project will somehow be redesigned to provide a lower cost technical solution. God knows what that means. People who are more qualified than me have made the point that the DART underground project was the missing link that would provide a very good solution in dealing with the massive strain that the commuter and DART rail networks are under at present. The stories of overcrowding we have heard from Deputy Halligan are replicated in my own area on the trains coming in from Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush and Malahide, etc. The DART underground project would massively increase capacity into and out of Dublin on commuter, DART and intercity trains. In my opinion, it would lead to an excellent return on our investment.

Like all Deputies, the Minister will have received a massive number of e-mails from the public on this issue. One of the points made in one of those e-mails is that even though the cost of a rail tunnel is high, the benefit is borne over decades and centuries and the expense is inflated away over time. Does London feel that its underground lines were expensive? Does it still feel the burden of that cost today? The person who wrote this e-mail suggests that most citizens would prefer to see the nation wait to build something adequate, rather than spending time and money building something inferior that will need to be upgraded in the future. I agree with that. Obviously, I was glad to hear the Minister announce yesterday that the DART will be extended to Balbriggan. Of course I was pleased, although it is long overdue. It must be a reflection of the Government's feeling that it is under a little pressure in the Dublin North constituency. Apart from that announcement, there was no clarity on how the rest of the project is to proceed or on anything else whatsoever.

The Minister said yesterday that he wants to make progress with "elements of the overall DART Expansion Programme which bring value in themselves, subject to appropriate business cases and the availability of funding". What does that mean? To which elements do the "appropriate business cases" apply? There is no clarity in any of this. In the absence of full funding for DART underground, several elements of the project that have been highlighted here previously could be advanced. I refer, for example, to the next phase of the Kildare line, the elimination of the level crossings in Maynooth and the electrification of the line around Grand Canal Dock. All of those projects would achieve benefits. The Minister's suggestion that we need to "continue to seek the best value for taxpayers' money in everything we do" is fine on that level, but I remind him that millions of euro have already been spent on some of these projects, including metro north. Are we going to flush them away?

I do not think the Minister has given enough details and I do not like this drip feed stuff. There was supposed to be an announcement on Wednesday and now the Minister is announcing something next week in terms of the capital plan. It is not good enough.

Obviously one of the big features was metro north. The point has been made that Dublin is one of the few cities in Europe that does not have a rail link to our national airport. Passenger numbers have increased by 15% in the first half of this year, with an additional 1.5 million passengers, which is absolutely massive. On one level I am not really bothered about the airport, much as I would like to see tourists transited in and out quicker than is currently the case. That would be a big plus but I am more concerned about the urban population that lives beyond the airport. An area like Swords, which has a population bigger than that of Waterford city, has nothing - absolutely nothing. Those who criticise metro - the real metro, that is - as being too costly are generally living on the south side of Dublin. I am not saying that as a cheap pop. Why are there large public meetings in Deputy Boyd Barrett's area when bus routes are axed? It is because they provide a very good service that gets people into town quickly and people treasure them. If a bus service were axed in north county Dublin it would not make a blind bit of difference because the routes are so unwieldy anyway. Buses have to go all around the world and back even to get into town. One would be quicker getting a flight from Frankfurt to Dublin city centre than getting in from Swords. The idea of replacing metro north with metro light or metro-not-really-the-real-one or metro-Luas-but-we-will-call-it-something-else is not really going to address that deficit. It is short sighted and not good enough, although I admit that we are being drip-fed information so the picture is not clear at all. If the idea is a Luas mark two which will stop a kilometre from the airport, then that is a bit pointless. Points were very well articulated in The Irish Times today about Luas being too slow and not having the capacity to take the volume of passengers that is necessary.

The Minister is aware that there have been large numbers of petitions gathered by the public in support of proceeding with some of the projects as they were originally envisaged, and that is absolutely critical. Behind the scenes here is the fact that delivering quality public transport costs money but it is a vital cog in the battle against climate change and a vital cog in the running of this city. Is it not a little sad that there was an announcement today that the Web Summit, which was founded in Dublin, is going to Lisbon because the latter city has much better infrastructure, systems and facilities than Dublin? I have no doubt that the lack of adequate public transport was a key part in that decision which will allegedly cost the Irish economy €100 million. We have had no problem pumping billions into motorways to facilitate private vehicles and to line the pockets of toll companies, over and over again, while a disproportionate and significant lack of investment in public rail transport has taken place. Sadly that, along with the reduced subsidy to Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann will be the legacy of this Government. Hard cash and serious plans rather than announcement after announcement would go down a lot better.

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