David Norris (Independent)

I fully support Senator Ryan's remarks about the metro. We had a meeting of the Joint Committee on Transport this morning which was addressed by Professor Melis, the man responsible for constructing the undergound in Madrid. It is important that we look at it again because it was this House, on foot of an amendment of mine, that initiated the whole question of the metro. We have in the Leader somebody who has very considerable experience in this area. Professor Melis also said there were five times too many people involved in the project. He has got it down even further. We were told €4.8 billion; it is down now to €1.05 billion, in other words one quarter what we were told and it can be put in, with his advice, by Christmas 2006 – forget 2016.