Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Why does the Minister say the National Transport Authority has responsibility? This is a political issue. The former Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Leo Varadkar, made one of the worst mistakes in his career, which should rule him out as a potential Taoiseach, when he shelved a project that was ready to go, had financing available and was in the four-year plan. We knew then as we knew in 2000 that we needed this project. The Minister is right that Deputy Varadkar's successor as Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, brought it back. As we have yo-yoed backwards and forwards, there is no certainty that the dates the Minister mentioned, of the project coming on board towards the latter part of the next decade, are actually real. It requires the Minister to show some leadership and give a commitment on when the metro north and the DART east-west interconnector will be built. The reason he needs to do that now and to give some certainty and political support to it is because the building of houses has to be connected to where public transport will be. The alternative is the continuing sprawl of Dublin, which will feed more cars onto the M50, which will not work. Rather than throwing the ball back to the National Transport Authority, the Minister needs to show some sort of political commitment and leadership and crack the whip as a Minister in order that we can start the process rather than it remaining in limbo, which is where it has been for the past six months.

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