Noel Rock (Dublin North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Farrell has summed up the matter quite neatly. First and foremost, it is not about our constituencies; it is about the city and national infrastructure and delivering on it. We both engaged in the public consultation process - in fact, thousands of my constituents did so - and we were promised an outcome from that process last year. Last year slipped to this year; this year slipped to February; February, as of my latest discussion with the NTA yesterday, is now slipping to March, one year since the public consultation opened. The Minister suggested in his answer that we should engage in public consultation when it next opens. I would love to engage with the next stage of the public consultation but I cannot do so as it has been delayed indefinitely. That is a concern. My concern is the constant slippage and the battle now being played out via media on the southside of the city, in particular. My other concern is that the reality behind the scenes is that the NTA does not seem to have a ready-made solution for this problem. Unlike the problem on the northside to which the Minister alluded, and to which a solution was found quickly, this issue does not seem to be reaching a resolution quickly. A solution needs to be found quickly, and the best way of doing so is an instruction to split this into a first phase and a second phase.

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