David Norris (Independent)

The Minister of State gave an indication of strong support on the part of the Government for the metro. That is extremely important. His replacement, the former distinguished Senator and now Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is aware that the metro project originated in this House some years ago, when some of us used an unusual political situation to put through the first legislative framework relating to it.

It is extremely important that the metro should proceed. However, I understand that difficulties have arisen in the context of planning. I hope the Government has taken on board the advice provided by Professor Manuel Maynar Melis who was invited to come here from Spain in order to give such advice. The Spanish authorities are able to proceed much more rapidly with the development of new metro systems because they have addressed, in legislative terms, all the difficulties that can arise in the context of planning, appeals, and so on. I hope the metro system will proceed as rapidly as possible.

I was surprised to hear a Minister of State from the Green Party refer to densities. He indicated that areas in which houses have back and front gardens and side entrances could not, because the densities are not high enough, support a metro or an underground system. I do not believe that is true. I am of the view that there is an adequate level of density in this city. The authorities in the city of Newcastle in England put in an underground system which became so successful that it made a profit and has now been bought by a major German combine. The metro is the way to go.

I do not necessarily believe the metro should be placed in conflict with Luas. The latter provides an interesting, comfortable but totally inadequate service. It can never be made adequate for perfectly demonstrable mathematical reasons. At our instigation, a model relating to the Luas was prepared by Dr. Garret FitzGerald and this demonstrated that it could not accommodate sufficient passengers as a result of the fact that too many intransigent variables formed part of the equation.

There are two Luas lines but these were never joined up. That was idiotic and it was certainly not smart transport policy. I was one of those who pointed out the shortcomings in this regard when the project was initially proceeding. I further highlighted the fact that not connecting the transport system directly to the airport was also somewhat idiotic. However, we are moving on and are working with a capable and energetic Minister of State in Deputy Cuffe. I do not always agree 100% with him but that is as may be.

We need to consider the comfort of passengers on the Luas. I recently had occasion to travel on both Luas lines and discovered that there is a noticeable difference between the red line and the green line. One has a much more civilised ride on the south side line that goes out to Sandyford, on which I believe there is greater supervision. I also have travelled on the line to Tallaght and from quite early in the evening there is a fair amount of aggressive behaviour on the trams, which is highly regrettable. People who are under the influence of drink or drugs make themselves obnoxious in various ways to other well-behaved passengers. I acknowledge there is some supervision and I pay tribute to the security officers on those trams but it must be upgraded. Such behaviour ranges from simple but annoying things like people ignorantly placing their feet on the seats right up to directly aggressive behaviour.

In respect of cars, I indicated that a kind of hierarchy existed. The Minister of State also talked about the carbon tax and during a budget debate a year or two ago, I made the point to his party leader, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, that in respect of car transport, the Government should be increasing the price of petrol rather than increasing car tax on the basis that the polluter should pay. This is the single most efficient method of raising revenue and is the most environmentally friendly. In addition, the car scrappage scheme is a nonsense. As Ireland is not even a car manufacturing country, we do not get any benefit from their manufacture and from an environmental perspective, it is completely counter-productive.

As for cycle lanes, I welcome them although I have retired from cycling as I found it to be far too bloody dangerous in the city of Dublin. However, the Minister should review the cycle lanes because they are incoherent. They sometimes cross and merge with other transport planes in an incoherent fashion. Moreover, they travel a certain distance and then suddenly stop in the middle of nowhere. Consequently, this issue should be examined.

However, I welcome this debate and hope we will get a smarter transport system with fully integrated ticketing. I welcome both the extension of the DART to the docklands and the western rail corridor. There has been some progress and I encourage the Government to complete as soon as possible the work on metro north, which is a vital component of our transport policy.