Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

I concur with my colleagues in seeking a debate on public transport and particularly Transport 21. Two further points should be raised in that regard. First, not only has the Minister for Transport not met the targets, which are now referred to as indicative timings, in the past, he is also refusing to set new targets for many of the projects that have been delayed. Of the five projects that will not be delivered this year, the Minister is proposing to set new targets for only two of them. Second, the metro north is probably the largest of these projects and will run through my constituency. The Minister is refusing to give a guarantee that it will have adequate capacity to cope with the number of commuters who will use it. Basically, he is saying that he is willing to spend up to €6 billion of taxpayers' money and not learn from the mistakes that were made on projects such as the M50. I cannot think of any greater evasion of ministerial responsibility than a refusal to set clear deadlines and objectives for the future spending of billions of our money.

The Dublin transport authority is the body that will be put in place to manage the spending on and delivery of many of the projects we are discussing this morning. We will not and cannot allow the Dublin transport authority become to transport what the Health Service Executive is to health.