Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I welcome the Minister to the House. I tend to forget to do that and end up apologising afterwards. It is just my scatter-brained way of doing things.

The core of the issue is identified in the Government amendment to the motion that mentions the centres in Dublin. It takes some nerve to say that people in Dublin have, "ready access via a modern road network to high volume purpose-built facilities." It takes neck to pretend that it is easy to get from anywhere to anywhere in Dublin in its present, permanent traffic jam. I sometimes leave Cork at 6 a.m. to drive here and I have a pleasant journey until near Dublin. This modern car network conveying the citizens of Dublin effortlessly to the three NCT test centres is a figment of the Fianna Fáil Government imagination and bears no relationship to reality. The Dublin road network is an incoherent mess and will remain so for at least another ten years. It is not normally part of my brief to act as an advocate for Dublin. Senator Brian Hayes is more than capable of doing that and he would be upset if I stole a headline about it.