Seanad debates

Wednesday, 5 November 2003

National Development Plan Mid-Term Evaluation: Statements.

 

Before leaving the roads issue, I would like to comment briefly on part of the Indecon report to which Senator Higgins referred. I have not had an opportunity to do so since it was published during the summer. It suggested that the savings in terms of time between the major urban centres would not be huge. For Galway, it referred to a saving of 36 minutes, that is, from 157 minutes currently to 121 minutes. Some of the figures are bizarre. It outlined current travelling times from Dublin to Galway of 157 minutes; Dublin to Limerick, 145 minutes, or just over two hours; Dublin to Cork, 205 minutes, or less than three and a half hours and Dublin to Waterford, 125 minutes, which is just over two hours. I do not think I have ever managed to travel between Dublin and any of these centres within these times. I travel regularly to Lisdoonvarna, in Senator Dooley's county, from where my wife comes and it rarely takes us less than four and a half hours, even on Sunday morning. How one can get to Galway in just over two hours is beyond me. We must sometimes treat what economists say with a certain measure of scepticism.

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