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

The Minister will spend €4 billion on roads in the next four years. He is bankrupting the country now because the traffic system in this city is grinding to a halt. He is the Minister for transport today. He should stand up to that responsibility in a country where we do have budgets. I heard European Investment Bank, EIB, representatives tell the Committee on Budgetary Oversight that there is no counter-party for us to lend to. They have no public projects ready to go. We protected this project when we were in government. We had the metro in the four-year plan. Fine Gael then killed it, which was the worst decision by any Government because it was the perfect counter cyclical plan that would have provided us not just with a transport system that works but it would have opened up those transport lines for housing. Instead, this Government is saying, "Aren't we great". It is 30 years late in opening up those lands for housing. What are the people in Kildare and beyond going to do when that rail system is not good enough to carry the numbers we need to be carried into this city? The Minister is a failure as Minister for transport.

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