Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the motion that has been tabled by our spokesperson on Dublin, Deputy Lahart. It is a sad and sorry coincidence that on the evening we are debating this motion, a further 17 bus routes have been redirected out of the centre of Dublin. Some 27 routes have now been moved away from College Green, while 30% of the total buses that serve the centre of Dublin have now been moved out of the city. It is basically down to very bad forward planning. It is an indictment of what should be an integrated public transport system. We are simply replacing one mode of transport with another.

I do not lay the blame for that solely at the Minister's door but I lay the responsibility for it at his door. Genuinely, it is a really sad indictment of the Government and how it feels about Dublin, Dublin commuters and those who are living and working in Dublin that there is not one Government Deputy here with the exception of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. There is not one Fine Gael Member in the Chamber, nor are Deputies from any of the other parties here at present. I am consistently hearing about there being this lurch towards Dublin, about overdevelopment in Dublin and the need for regionalisation. That need absolutely exists but who suffers in the meantime? It is not just the regions but also Dublin.

The Minister and his Government colleagues, particularly the Taoiseach, do not understand what it is like to be a commuter or what it is like to spend one and a half hours in a car to travel ten miles in this city. They do not understand what it is like to queue up for half an hour to try and get on a train that only goes every half hour from the commuter belt into Dublin.

This is a great county and a great city to live and work in. I am a very proud Dub myself. However, it is being choked at the moment. The city is choked and the county is at an absolute crawl. We can do a lot better but we need to get real about our issues and who the decision makers are. The city manager, the chief executive of Dublin City Council and the councillors in Dublin city, and particularly the executive branch of the city council need to be brought under the control of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. We need an integrated approach between the four local authorities. It is giving rise not only to a loss of investment and potential, but also to a serious loss of quality of life and people are turning away from the city and the county.

One example given this evening was the 17 additional bus routes that have been diverted to make way for the longer Luas cross city. It should not be one or the other. I will get another opportunity as we discuss the national development plan to talk about other failures like metro north, DART underground, the airport and all the other developments that we so badly need. This evening I am talking about the short-term measures, what we are doing to improve the situation but also what we are doing to make it worse.

I received a letter yesterday from the National Transport Authority on foot of a parliamentary question I put to the Minister. It is about Fairview, an area outside my constituency. It is one of only two arterial routes into the city from the north city and county. Everyone from Howth Head right through to Bayside, Baldoyle, Sutton and Clontarf, and everyone as far north as Donabate, Portrane, Rush, Lusk and Skerries right down through Malahide and up through Darndale and Coolock uses Fairview to access the city. What did our city councillors and city manager do? Before Christmas, they decided without debate in the city council to close one of those vehicular routes into the city on Fairview Strand. That is a decision that affects the whole city and county. I put it to the Minister that it is not a decision the city council should have taken without debate in its chamber, as it affects the whole the city and county. That is just one example.

There has got to be an integrated approach to public transport and commuting, for those who use the car, those who cycle as Deputy O'Callaghan has mentioned, and those who use the train like I do every day. I commute to this House on the DART. Without planning, we will not get an integrated approach. Journey times are being extended, businesses are losing money and commuters are leaving Dublin. We can decide to have a modern city that actually works or we can be happy with a city that is choked and is choking to death. That is what is happening to Dublin, a city I am very proud to represent. The Minister and his Government unfortunately are letting Dublin down.

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