Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his suggestion. Nobody would realistically underestimate the traffic problems, particularly in the capital city. It would be unrealistic for me, as Minister, to suggest anything else. I acknowledge the difficulties, particularly with the M50 and in Dublin city centre. We need a certain amount of patience at the moment because a large number of the plans we have would be unaffordable at the moment. Metro north is a multi-million euro project, which I would love to see starting tomorrow but we simply do not have that money in the Department or the State at the moment. The projections from the 2020 period onwards are fairly optimistic. We cannot achieve overnight what we would like to achieve with the traffic volumes increasing, but we have a well-considered long-term plan that includes metro north, the DART underground and, of course, the Luas cross-city which will start next year.

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