Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte for taking the debate. With two Ministers in the Department of Transport, it is unfortunate that not one of them is here, but I look forward to the script they have sent. Hopefully it will calm the anger in the community, particularly in Swords, north County Dublin, which is based on the reports in the Mail on Sunday that metro north was going to be delayed by many years. There is such anger because over the past three years, and for the first time in this drawn-out process, the people in the town finally believed that something was happening. They were seeing ground testing works and over the past few months they were engaging in deep planning consultations with Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, on route planning. It felt that we were getting close to it. Master plans were agreed on the basis of this. This report has landed, and it has angered the community to a level I have not experienced.

I look forward to what the Minister of State will have to say. I hope this will turn out to be an unfortunate couple of days and that we can move beyond it. If it is not, then we are in major trouble.

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