Dáil debates

Wednesday, 13 February 2019

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate

Rail Network Expansion

3:25 pm

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I appreciate the Minister coming in to discuss how we extend the metro to the south side of Dublin. He may be aware that on Monday night, South Dublin County Council approved a motion, advanced by my colleague, Councillor Francis Noel Duffy, that rather than stopping at Charlemont, Ranelagh or Beechwood, as I believe the Minister and the Department may be considering, that we would continue the metro south west, through my preferred route of Harold's Cross, Terenure, Knocklyon, Firhouse and Tallaght. Thinking really big - cities like Copenhagen have done exactly this - we should put an orbital metro in place where it would run around the south side of the city from Knocklyon to Sandyford to UCD and back into town. That way, we would solve the congestion concerns coming from Sandyford. Critically, it would go back to the original metro design, which was to run a spur to the south west of the city. As the Minister will know, this is an area that is atrociously served by public transport.

I was at a meeting on Monday night in the Hilton Hotel on BusConnects and considering the Rathfarnham bus corridor route. It is going to be the hardest, most difficult route. There was real anger from local people because front gardens are going to be taken away. No matter what we do on that route, we are not going to have the level of public transport the areas deserve and need in order to thrive and develop. There is significant development potential, particularly as one goes further south. On the edges of the mountains, we are building thousands of new houses. The current and projected public transport system - buses and cycling facilities - will not be able to cope with this and the metro is to right option.

It will obviously cost an additional and a significant chunk of money. We should not be scared off doing anything additional because of the national children's hospital. There will be concerns, and the Minister may articulate these in his response, that we do not want to delay the overall metro project. I, for one, am the last person who would wish for that because we need the metro.

This can be done. Under the existing plan the metro will run from Charlemont Street, St. Stephen's Green, O'Connell Street or whatever section one wants to have as the breakpoint. The metro could proceed as planned for the north side of Dublin. When that is going through the whole procurement and rail order phases, one could work out to the Minister's satisfaction the design, costing, and alignment of the extension of the metro to the south west rather than digging up and closing the Harcourt Street line. That is the last major case for this alternative approach.

What the Government is planning to do - it goes back to the 2015 transport plan, so this is not just about this Government in that it has been thought about for a while - about which we became aware recently is to close the green line, to convert what is a highly successful pedestrian access Luas line into a segregated metro route, which cuts off local access to the line and cuts across communities even with measures to try to protect against that, and to close that critical public transport artery for a year to two years. That would miss the opportunity to service a wider variety of catchment areas with a high quality rail-based transport system, which is the scale of ambition we should have and what we need.

It will cost money and may require a complicated planning process. As we are proceeding, we could develop the final rail order for the south side. In terms of engineering coherence, servicing people of south Dublin, meeting our climate objectives and switching from the car-based system choking our city, this is the right way to go. A study published this morning found that Dublin was the worst city in the world for traffic congestion. This city needs this scale of ambition to solve this problem. I encourage the Minister to consider this and I am keen to hear what he has to say on the matter.

Photo of Shane RossShane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy for the opportunity to address this important question on transport in Dublin. I welcome a debate on how best to use the increased levels of investment this Government is making available to support the development of improved public transport. I am sometimes fearful that we do not seem to be learning from the lessons of the past. By that I mean - I believe the Deputy would agree with me - that we need to move away from transport projects by press release and instead move towards a planned and integrated development of public transport and land use strategies. That is why the Oireachtas voted to create the NTA in 2008. Importantly, and I know the Deputy will agree with me, the legislation gave it a much-needed statutory power to develop a transport strategy for the greater Dublin area and that this strategy must be integrated within land use planning strategies across the greater Dublin area, GDA.

We now have a statutory transport strategy in the greater Dublin area which covers the period 2016 to 2035 and which must be reviewed every six years. That strategy is the basis for the development of an integrated transport system for the GDA. Development of the strategy was subject to a full public consultation period and any and all interested parties were able to make their views known. Following that public consultation, the approved strategy set out an ambitious range of improvements across the area of metro and light rail. These improvements include: the development of a metro from the city centre to north County Dublin; the development of a metro from the city centre to south County Dublin along the Luas green line; the need to improve the capacity of the green line in advance of its upgrade to metro standard; and a number of Luas extensions to Lucan, Finglas, Bray and Poolbeg. What we are now trying to do is to implement that strategy. That is why I secured the funding allocations under Project Ireland 2040 to allow for its implementation over the next ten years. The need for the development of a north-south metro has been recognised for 20 years or more.

The Deputy will recall how A Platform for Change, published in 2000 by the then Dublin Transport Office, called it the spine of any future metro system. The need to upgrade the Luas green line to metro over the medium to long term was recognised then as it is today. We are providing longer trams and purchasing more trams under the green line capacity enhancement project but, ultimately, that only buys us time; it does not solve the problem. In the long term, the upgrade to metro standard is necessary to ensure growth along that corridor can be accommodated.

I have not yet formally received the council's motion, as proposed by the Deputy's council colleague last Monday. From media reports and the information the Deputy has provided today, it would appear to be an entirely new set of projects, both Luas and metro, rather than an extension of the MetroLink. I am clear that we need to implement the transport strategy in a planned and co-ordinated manner, and I am also sure that new projects and programmes can and should be considered as part of the review of the strategy in the next couple of years, which obviously includes what the Deputy has just suggested. We are planning to transform the greater Dublin area's transport network in line with the strategy, whether MetroLink, BusConnects or DART expansion, and we need to work together to ensure this transformation takes place in a timely fashion.

3:35 pm

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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There has been 30 years of work on this issue so it was not just by press release that they were trying to make the case. The fundamental case is that the plan can and should change, and it already has changed. It included in its original form a DART interconnector which has since been removed by the Government as an aspiration or put off into never-never land. As a result, the MetroLink plan has been moved to the city and, as a consequence, now threatens the Markievicz pool. That plan is constantly changing and it has to change further to get it right.

The key failing, and it is only in the detail that we discover this, is that going back and turning the green line into a metro line is a flawed engineering approach. It is flawed because it has to be shut for a year or a year and a half, flawed because all the great aspects of pedestrian accessibility are being taken away and flawed because it is missing the opportunity to branch elsewhere. The key concept is that we do not just connect MetroLink into the green line, but we keep the tunnel running. Once there is a tunnelling machine in the ground, I am told by the engineers I trust that it is much lower-cost to keep the tunnel running, so we should use that opportunity to keep it running to the south west. As an alternative, we could keep it running to the south east to UCD and Sandyford, or, as Councillor Duffy suggested, have a southside loop. This is what Copenhagen has done in the same time we have been talking; it has built two metro lines while we have been thinking about it and saying we are going to do it. Copenhagen is now building just such an orbital loop and I see no reason we should not do that for south Dublin.

We asked the NTA what our climate emissions will be from transport in Dublin, given all the other planned projects, and its answer was that there would be increase of 30%. I said to Mr. Cregan at the BusConnects meeting on Monday that this metro alternative should be done. He agreed it was the right project but he said he could not do it because he does not have political clearance for it, effectively. He would love to do it but he needs political support to make it happen, which is why the Minister and his Cabinet colleagues are critical. This is a political decision. Will the Minister think big about public transport in south Dublin or is he going to stick to the existing plan?

Photo of Shane RossShane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy for taking a far more moderate approach to this problem than he normally takes. Any suggestions he makes will certainly be considered in the review which comes up in 2021-2023 because, obviously, there are some constructive elements to what he has to say. I acknowledge his recognition of the costs of what he is suggesting but I do not see any figures or any suggestion as to how it is to be paid for. While I am open to correction, it seems the Deputy has two principal suggestions, first, that there would be an extension of Metro North from Charlemont to Knocklyon, and the second involves the red Luas line from Tallaght to Booterstown. I do not have a clue what that would cost, nor has the Deputy. To make a suggestion of that sort, which would cost billions of euro, without even suggesting where the money will come from is fairly irresponsible-----

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Take it from the motorway programme.

Photo of Shane RossShane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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It is a luxury which the Deputy enjoys in opposition, although he did not exploit it so well when he was in power.

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The Minister is adding blindness to insult.

Photo of Shane RossShane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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Let us have lots more of the Deputy's suggestions, which will, of course, be considered, but when they are considered they will have to be carefully costed. The Deputy hopes what has happened with the national children's hospital will not stop us from embarking on big projects, and it will not, but it will certainly make us more careful. It will also put a burden on the Opposition to not just throw out castles in the air like this but to acknowledge that such suggestions will cost billions of euro and that they do not know where those billions of euro are going to come from.

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Take it from the motorway programme.

Photo of Shane RossShane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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The Deputy mentioned he is hoping to take the metro through Rathfarnham and Terenure. A very detailed analysis was conducted in the transport strategy. It concluded that the actual and forecasted demand along the Rathfarnham-Terenure corridor does not meet the threshold of a metro-style service. That is the only scientific evidence which has been produced. Whatever the cost, and the Deputy does not seem to worry about the cost, it does not even meet the threshold of numbers.