Jim McDaid (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)

We have been to Vienna, Amsterdam, Lyons and Grenoble. In all these places, light rail systems are working perfectly because they have been given priority. If the Luas is not given priority we will not succeed in what we have set out to do, which is making Dublin a place where people are able to walk freely around the city centre. If such positive discrimination is not shown to the Luas we cannot achieve that. Currently, there are buses and cars in the city centre but we are trying to get people out of their cars and on to public transport. It works in Madrid, Vienna and Amsterdam and we have taken all those issues into account. It is an insult to the intelligence of the Irish people to claim, as some newspapers have done, that we do not have people in this country who are capable of doing exactly what has been done in those foreign cities. The only two EU capitals that do not have a metro system are Luxembourg and Dublin, which has a population of 1.2 million. That leaves much to be desired.

While it is impossible to say precisely, the overall cost of the metro to the Exchequer will be largely dependent on what the private sector is prepared to put into it. Following consideration of the Railway Procurement Agency's proposals by the Department, it is intended to being proposals to Government in the coming weeks. Arguments have been made about the costings of all these projects and proposals for legislative change are also being considered. I have heard the argument made this evening that it can be done for one tenth of the cost in Madrid. Unfortunately, that is a reflection of the psyche in this country. Legislative changes, whether they are to be constitutional or otherwise, will have to be introduced to see whether we can make progress on the cost issue.

Those matters, including the EU's 24-hour working rule directive, are determining the cost of these projects and we cannot proceed with the current system. All these things have to be taken into consideration because the directive introduces a 40-hour working week. We will have to examine where flexibility can be allowed so that projects can be completed in a shorter time. We will be examining all these issues.