The Department of Finance is doing its best to prevent the development of a proper system of off road public transport similar to that in European cities of comparable size to Dublin. The Department decided the State cannot afford this and it is in the wonderful position of being able to say half the time measures cannot be taken because there is no market for them but, when the market develops and such infrastructure is desperately needed, the officials say the projects are too dear and cannot be undertaken. This is a wonderful double lock which means that when the Exchequer can afford to undertake such projects, it will not do so because they are not needed and, when they are needed, they are too dear because acquisition of property is expensive and labour costs are high and they cannot, therefore, be undertaken. This prevents the development of a road and rail infrastructure that much poorer European countries such as Portugal take for granted. Lisbon has a metro, yet Portugal is still a comparatively poor country. I will visit Budapest next week. That city had a metro 25 years ago, about which the people of Dublin can only dream, yet Hungary has only one sixth of our per capita GDP. This is a fundamental fault.