Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I raise this topic as it is one that will have most impact on people living in Dublin in the coming years and decades. There are two aspects and I will speak both to the local and the general elements. If the Minister bears with me, I will begin by speaking specifically about my local area of Dublin South-West, particularly Templeogue. Some people may be aware, as it has been mentioned in the House already this week, that there have been public meetings in the constituency, with hundreds of people attending them. These people live in the area on the affected roads or surrounding roads.

The principal argument about what the National Transport Authority, NTA, and BusConnects are doing is that they are addressing the issue, as they should, of people who commute through the area. Is the NTA taking account of communities in the area through which the commuting takes place? I am in favour of public transport and an enhanced bus service. I am in favour of enhanced cycle lanes and allowing for the development of our city for environmental as well as good commuting reasons, facilitating the taking of people out of cars and providing them with proper public transport. I am not in favour of a system that BusConnects reflects currently, which has basically no regard of the impact on existing communities through which it would go.

At Templeogue village, the inward-bound lane would be closed at Terenure so people would not be able to drive towards the city centre. That is not just at peak times but 24-7, as there is a real necessity at 3 a.m. to have that rule in place. Parking is to be reduced substantially in the village but there has been no consultation with local businesses, which exist on the basis of people being able to park for a few minutes to go into a shop to buy a local product from a local person running a local business. Those businesses will not survive and plonking some big car park down the back of the village will not enable them to survive either. They need to have access to local parking.

This route through Templeogue village is a local road for the people living on it, although it may be a main road to some people. It is proposed to have what amounts to a "hyperlane", consisting of two car lanes, two bus lanes and two cycle lanes, running through the village. How are people supposed to cross from one side of the village to the other with that type of structure in place? There is currently one lane in either direction and a cycle lane interacts with the footpath. The other joke is they say it is a necessity because the proposal is for full continuous lanes; in the middle of Templeogue village, however, we can see the insanity of what is proposed because the lane just stops and vanishes without a trace. The route reverts to a regular road, with the cyclists having to leave the cycle lane and the buses having to leave the bus lane. Everybody gets to a point in the middle of the road because there is no more bus or cycle lane. If that does not undermine the logic of the project by itself, I do not know what would.

I will come back to the general principle as the NTA must look again at how it is doing this and particularly the public consultation. This is where we get to the general point for all of Dublin. We need to be honest and upright with people. The NTA needs to say it is either the needs of the commuter that outweighs the need of the community or there can be a balance between them. The feeling is overwhelmingly that in the communities through which BusConnects plans to plough, they will be the sacrificed so we can have an enhanced bus service in the city. I ask the Minister to reconsider this as it is possible to devise a system that is fair to both.

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