John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister, Deputy Ross, for coming to the House to address this issue. He is one of the few Cabinet Ministers that turns up for Topical Issue matters on a consistent basis.

Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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Hear, hear.

John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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I am sure the Minister will accuse me of whining and whinging if I start off in a particular vein but I have a duty as a public representative to raise issues on behalf of my constituents. We become much more exercised about traffic at Christmas time but this Topical Issue is about traffic congestion all year round and specific issues that the Minister might consider addressing.

At Christmas time, people like to be relaxed but at any given time of the day there is intense traffic and pedestrian movement to and from the city or major shopping centres such as Dundrum shopping centre in the Minister's constituency, The Square in my constituency or in Liffey Valley and Blanchardstown centres as people attempt to do their Christmas shopping and enjoy the festive spirit. There is nothing worse than being stuck in a car or on a bus that is not moving, aggravated by weather conditions. One of the principles behind what was previously known as Operation Freeflow but is now known as Operation Open City is that all road works and so on are curtailed or undertaken during less busy commuting hours. At the entrance to my estate on Scholarstown Road, an area which the Minister previously represented, there is a roundabout at which major works are being carried out. This roundabout is 200 yd. from the M50 and thus there are never ending tailbacks. This work is due to continue until 17 December which means there is no Operation Open City in this area. I would like the Minister to whom I can appeal under Operation Open City to take action in this regard, particularly at this time of the year.

I would like to comment on a couple of issues. The Minister and I have previously engaged in this Chamber on the cost of congestion to the city annually, which is currently €300 million and is expected to increase by 2030 to approximately €2 billion annually.

6 o’clock

Dublin Chamber discovered that one of the matters that frequently cheeses off commuters and deters them from using public transport is the reality that bus journey times are uncompetitive with car journey times.

I travel in a number of ways, be it walking, cycling, driving the car and occasionally on the bus. The bus lanes are not policed adequately. Does the Minister, the NTA or the councils have any plans for this? I realise that it uses up many Garda resources but if they were policed, the benefit would be twofold. A number of bus lanes do not operate on a 24-hour basis but when they are operational, cars simply fill up the space. That habit has been allowed to form because there is a lack of observational police control over it. However, if they were properly policed, many more people would have confidence in using the bus to commute to and from town or other areas. This is one matter in which the Minister could take a particular interest. There are others. We could try to facilitate a number of park-and-ride facilities on the outskirts of the city and in the suburbs by using existing car parks that are not used during office hours.

These are just a few ideas for the Minister and I welcome his feedback on them.

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy for his constructive suggestions. Congestion is a feast that keeps on giving. It must be wonderful to be a transport spokesperson or spokesperson on Dublin in the opposition and wonder what to have a go at on a given day. One could talk about congestion every day until kingdom come and one would still find problems. We admit that it is not optimal. There are problems with congestion and it is easy to tackle it from the Opposition. The Government is not ashamed of the strong measures it has taken to relieve congestion. It is a little odd that when we do something right at Christmas, the complaint becomes, "Why not do it all year round?" rather than, "Well done, it is working at Christmas". It is a short and sharp attempt to tackle the traffic challenge around Christmas. Thankfully, it is successful even if there still is congestion. The Deputy acknowledges it and I am grateful to him for that.

It is a matter of Garda enforcement. While we welcome what the gardaí are doing, it would be difficult for them to do it all year round. I guess that is because of resources. I do not know because Garda enforcement is not in my portfolio. However, the Garda makes an extra special effort with extra manpower on the city traffic flow and it tackles that with some success, but I assume those resources must be deployed elsewhere or are not available during the rest of the year. I congratulate the Garda on what it has been doing around Christmas. I share the Deputy's aspiration that we could have perfection or near perfection all the time, but we will not get that in respect of the traffic flow and congestion in Dublin for some time to come. That does not mean we are not tackling it; we are doing that constructively.

Operation Open City aims to help people get about their day's business, and enjoy the seasonal festivities, by facilitating the movement of public transport in Dublin and minimising traffic disruption to the general public through high visibility and enforcement activity. The operation is led each year by An Garda Síochána. A number of different agencies are involved in supporting the work of the Garda such as the National Transport Authority, NTA, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, the Dublin local authorities, transport providers and the business community. However, the issue of congestion in our cities, while it may become more acute over the Christmas period, is a challenge all year round. As can be seen from Operation Open City each Christmas, that challenge requires a multi-agency response. I assure the Deputy that such an approach is being adopted in Dublin city and the wider greater Dublin area.

The NTA, Dublin City Council and TII, in conjunction with public transport operators, are progressing various measures to ensure efficient functioning of transport within the city centre. These measures can be found in the NTA's transport strategy for the greater Dublin area, as well as the 2015 Dublin city centre transport study which was prepared by the city council and the NTA. Not surprisingly, a key thrust of both is to significantly improve public transport infrastructure and services, as well cycling and walking facilities in the city. A number of recently completed projects have served to improve both capacity and quality of service. These include the opening of Luas cross city last year, the reopening of the Phoenix Park tunnel for commuter trains to and from Kildare at the end of 2016, the introduction earlier this year of ten minute DART services, investment in cycle routes and public bike sharing schemes and the renewal and expansion of the PSO bus fleets.

This week, new timetables came into operation across the commuter rail network, which provide for extended services throughout the day. Next year, the PSO bus fleet in the city will increase by approximately 70 and the fleet has expanded by 17% in the past couple of years. The Luas green line capacity enhancement project will continue in 2019 with the delivery of extended trams expected toward the end of the year.

John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister started by saying it must be wonderful to be in opposition and raising traffic congestion, which is the gift that keeps on giving. It does not give me any pleasure to do it because it is a problem on which he does not appear to be making an impact. I have not seen a significant Garda presence on the street. However, let us keep the focus on positive matters. Did the Minister call the representatives of all the agencies to his Department, because if I was in his position I would do this a month or two months before the Christmas period, and have a discussion with them, push them hard on the measures they could take and ask them if they look at international experience? It would be a logical first step for a Minister with responsibility for transport to hear from them at first hand and also to offer some suggestions.

Perhaps the Minister would abandon the script for his response to the next issue, which is the bus lanes. This could benefit people all year round. If they are policed adequately, particularly the important ones, and if people are penalised when they drive in a bus lane, they will learn a habit that will continue over the rest of the year . It is not about penalising them for being in a bus lane but because the bus simply cannot proceed when there are cars in the bus lane. The buses are held up and do not meet their timetables so the public is less inclined to take public transport. This would be a real public transport initiative.

There is another issue. On the next occasion the Minister meets the representatives of Luas and Dublin Bus could he ask them why all vehicles must start at a terminus? I have raised this with Dublin Bus. In Dundrum and Sandyford in the Minister's constituency, is there some technical or logistical reason that Luas cannot dispatch the occasional empty tram at peak times that passes a few stops and starts at Dundrum and is able to pick up everybody on the platform instead of starting every Luas at the terminus? It is similar with buses. Many people in different areas complain that if a bus was allowed to start boarding passengers four or five stops into the route, it could absorb the capacity and there would not be the problem of packed buses passing people queuing at bus stops.

These are two or three simple solutions.

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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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-----

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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No.

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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We are tackling this on a long-term and a short-term basis. Traffic congestion will not be sorted overnight, but it will be relieved greatly by the projects on which we have embarked.