Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

All of us who made submissions to the national consultation by the NTA in January 2015 will be very disappointed with the Minister's response. In the programme for Government, there is only a throwaway line. There is very little about transport generally speaking, so I am not sure what the Minister was trying to achieve in all of his long negotiations with Fine Gael. We got a commitment from the former Minister, Deputy Donohoe, that we would have a new metro north line with 14 stops, 30 trams an hour and 60 m long trams carrying 30 million passengers. The cost was put at €2.4 billion. What is the Minister telling us about the delivery of this? When will he get a report from the dedicated steering group? What type of funding will he spend on the project this year and in the forthcoming years? Many people on all sides of the House, the west and north sides of Dublin and, indeed, the whole of the Dublin region are very much committed to this. The Fingal county manager, Mr. Paul Reid, and Fingal County Council are very committed. Dublin City Council is committed. We want to see some action. What type of consultations has the Minister had on the various proposals made in the public consultation in January 2015? Has he met distinguished transport engineers, such as Mr. Cormac Rabbitt, who advocated very strongly that we should proceed with the Spanish system, as is found in Madrid, with a much lower cost-type development which would deliver much more quickly than 2026 or 2030. Many of us may not be in the House in 2026. It is way down the line. The Minister needs to give us something more concrete.

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