Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise this issue with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport because it is an indication of the mess that the future development of the centre of Dublin is in currently. The Minister has taken a hands-off approach to public transport in Ireland's capital city, where a significant population lives and where people come in from the suburbs all around Dublin, including from my constituency of Dublin West, which includes Blanchardstown, Mulhuddart and Castleknock. If there was proper investment in public transport, those people would find their commute getting shorter; instead it is getting longer.

The BusConnects proposal has recently been developed. That proposal, which the Minister was involved in establishing, is seriously flawed. He said it had nothing to do with him and passed it on. Communities all over Dublin are left uncertain as to what will happen.

The central part of the BusConnects proposal was, in my view and that of many engineers, premised around the fact that College Green plaza would be implemented and significant numbers of major bus routes would be removed from the city centre. Those routes were to go down the quays and turn over the Rosie Hackett Bridge and, by other mechanisms, make their way to the south side of the city.

An Bord Pleanála, to which Dublin City Council decided to submit its plans and proposals, stated that the quays are too congested to take much more. That is clear to anyone who uses the buses daily going up and down the quays, as I do, and I know the Minister is also a bus user. An Bord Pleanála saw merit in the plan, but stated the impact, particularly on things like bus services, would be disastrous.

I got details of contracts for consultants relating to transport, presumably authorised in the Minister's capital budget. For 2017, Jarrett Walker & Associates, the firm which designed BusConnects, is listed as having been paid €407,000. In 2018 to date, the same firm of consultants is listed as having been paid €208,000. That is a total of €615,000 in consultancy fees in two years, which is not an inconsiderable sum. We are now thrown into total confusion.

This relates to the Minister's leadership of his Department. A hands-off approach is not good enough for Dublin city and the vast population it serves in terms of public transport. The Minister cannot, like Pontius Pilate, wash his hands of this because he is in the lofty and honourable position of being a Minister. He cannot say that Dublin city transport has nothing to do with him and refuse to get involved.

This decision of An Bord Pleanála simply adds to the confusion about what will happen in Dublin city centre. It is a grievous blow to the city, but so too is the Minister's BusConnects programme, which is now out to public consultation. The topic has been discussed on many occasions in the House. I do not know what will come back after Christmas because now a central feature of the plan, fewer buses within College Green, has been thrown out by An Bord Pleanála for the very good reason that there is not enough bus transport and the quays are already too congested.

The proposals the Minister has been flying kites with simply cannot be implemented.

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