Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is difficult to respond without being too detailed, which is not in my brief. I do not decide on bus routes, individual corridors or the like and it would be absolutely wrong if I did. The first thing that would happen is I would have to consider various people's constituencies and I would be accused of political favouritism. I do not get involved in that type of detail. However, I meet representatives of the NTA, Luas, Dublin Bus and the other bodies the Deputies mentioned regularly and I express the type of concerns he expressed regularly. They are aware of that. I refer the concerns he expressed, which probably reflect my own, to them from time to time.

It is unfair to suggest they are not doing an adequate job in relieving congestion. Congestion will not be resolved in the short term. One will not wave a magic wand and sort it out overnight. We are taking extraordinary measures which are part of a long-term programme that will relieve the problems.

Bus transport is the main component of the solution. Sustainable transport is very important and bus transport is the largest ingredient of that. We have invested huge sums of money in bus transport to achieve the same objectives that Deputy Lahart and I would like to achieve. I do not think the Deputy and I differ on issues such as BusConnects. Perhaps we might have some differences on the detail of certain routes, but on the whole this is a very concerted and expensive plan, although money well spent, on getting people to more places in a shorter time. It will involve building more bus corridors, to which the Deputy referred. This is important because the buses will cut the journey times, which hopefully will automatically take the cars off the road.

With other projects that I do not have time to list-----

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