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

It is highly ironic that it is Fianna Fáil which is tabling the Dublin transport motion before us. It was that party and its current Fine Gael partners in government which starved the Dublin region of transport and other key infrastructure over the past five decades. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, for example, the proposed light rail system included a northside Ballymun-Dublin Airport line but the Ahern Government scrapped the northside proposal and went ahead with the minimum red and green lines. Now, three decades later, we are still talking about metro north and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, has again put it on the long finger until 2026 or whenever. I want to commend Fingal County Council chief executive, Paul Reid, and his staff on highlighting the issue and protecting the metro north economic corridor up to Swords and Lissenhall. With the huge population growth in the north fringe and Swords, and with the airport heading towards 30 million passengers per annum, it is not a question of whether metro north can be fast-tracked; it must be fast-tracked. It is also disappointing that a completion date for the metro light rail could not have been targeted for, say, 2022, the anniversary of national independence and in time for the possibility of the Rugby World Cup being hosted here. In fact, it could have been part of the package that Dick Spring and his committee were offering to the other rugby federations. Instead, the NTA talks of yet more consultations whereas Spain and other EU partners have many examples of metro and light rail systems being built in three to five years.

At a meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight yesterday, during our review of the capital programme, we again heard of the desperately low levels of investment in Ireland, this time from the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. The austerity Governments since 2008 have allowed investment to fall below minimum depreciation levels and Ireland had the lowest gross fixed capital formation in the EU at less than 2% in 2015. The current Government's programme down to 2021 is a feeble attempt to remedy this and the funding available needs to be doubled, especially in the areas of social housing and transport. I thoroughly agree with the Dublin chamber that metro north and DART underground projects should be prioritised in the next five years. The commuter train networks in the west of Dublin city should also be urgently transformed into DART services. The subsuming of the Railway Procurement Agency into the NTA was a grave mistake by the last Government and I was very disappointed to learn from the railway procurement section of the NTA recently that none of the fixed rail projects to which I refer are shovel-ready despite the millions of euro - perhaps €60 million - that have already been spent on planning metro north.

Obviously, the network direct system introduced by Dublin Bus in the past decade has transformed the structure of bus transport in the city and Dublin Bus staff must be complimented on the great efficiencies they have produced. However, further massive investment is clearly necessary in the bus network, especially to facilitate orbital travel around the city region. While a well-developed fixed line rail system for Dublin is critical, the bus network will continue to be the workhorse of public transport.

The number of people cycling to work at the end of 2016 was almost the same as the number carried by the Luas lines and, of course, many more commuters use the Dublin bikes scheme. Nonetheless, I note the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport has still not undertaken a formal review of the implementation of the national cycle policy framework and, hopefully, this will be carried out later in the year. I and colleagues on Dublin City Council in the early 1990s promoted a city-wide cycling network but it has again taken decades to develop this and to expedite measures for pedestrian safety. I also proposed Dutch-style home zones, with 25 mph speed limits for residential areas in the mid-1990s.

While I welcome the completion of the Sutton to Sandycove cycleway in my constituency, Dublin Bay North, I have received many complaints from constituents that the new James Larkin Road is dangerous on road safety grounds because it is so narrow and no lane has been provided for public transport and emergency vehicles. Constituents believe the original 2008 plan should have been constructed with a public transport lane and the safe cycleway beside it.

Last year, I made a generally positive submission on the proposed College Green plaza. However, many workers have complained that this and other current plans for the Dublin quays emanating from the traffic department of Dublin City Council do not recognise the need for well-structured north-south arteries across Dublin for necessary motor traffic. Most of Dublin city lies north of the Liffey and the current city manager forgets that 65% to 70% of his administrative area is actually located on the northside.

City planners have continued to approve large-scale office and other workplace developments in Dublin 2 and Dublin 4. That approach requires, alongside increased facilities for pedestrians and cyclists and greatly enhanced public transport, the maintenance of a core network of cross-city street linkages. Indeed, the recent plans for the city quays also fall into that category because it would inevitably have deflected a lot of east-west traffic into the suburbs of Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan's constituency, which is unacceptable.

Finally, last week Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Bristol elected their first mayors and received some reasonable autonomy from London. The Dublin region, more than ever, needs an elected mayor to fight for necessary transport and other infrastructure for our capital city. In fact, it was the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael parties on Fingal County Council which prevented us from having a referendum on the mayoralty of Dublin. We need a mayor. We need somebody to fight for Dublin. Manchester and London have mayors. We have seen the success of the London mayor, the Paris mayor, the New York mayor, etc. We need a Dublin mayor as well to move forward on transport and not to be relying on Governments that are dominated by Members who do not really care about Dublin.

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