Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is a geographical constituency and another constituency. That is right. The Senator is welcome to it in any event.I have no plans to toll the M50, to be plain.

The DART underground and the metro north were referred to. The reason for the DART underground - which started under the Government before last - being cancelled was quite obvious. It was a project which was begun and had to be abandoned because of cost. The cost was absolutely prohibitive. I am looking for the figures I have for it but I think it was €3 billion or €4 billion, and at that time it would have been impossible to continue it. Senator Horkan referred eloquently to how it is necessary and should be continued or revived. That is the plan and there are moves afoot at the moment but funds are very tight. Funds are very tight, particularly for the underground, for the metro north and for any of these big capital projects. It would be very wrong to say that we are going to have it and spend a huge amount of money. A lot of what the Senator said was very aspirational, which is fair, and it is the privilege of anybody in opposition to say these things should be done now. We have to actually find the cash in government and while it would be difficult to find the cash for the DART underground at the moment, there is a commitment to do it. There is no reneging on that but it is a matter of time. The Government recognises that the difficulties, particularly in Dublin, merit a project of this sort. It certainly will do it when the money is there.

The Senator also addressed road safety and the Garda traffic corps. We have ministerial road safety meetings frequently now because of deaths on the road. Representatives of the Garda attend that, as do the Minister for Justice and Equality and several other interested parties. A Garda assistant commissioner attended the last one in December and he made a commitment that he would now provide a 10% increase in checkpoints by the traffic corps. I presume that would be over the course of this year. The Garda stepped up its campaign during December, which resulted in a large number of extra arrests for drink-driving. There was a 35% increase, which was worrying but very effective. It is good news because they are catching a lot more people. It is bad news because now it has been discovered that the problem of drinking and driving is really bad and it is getting worse. It has to be acknowledged. Enforcement is increasing there, though probably not at the rate that we would like. The Senator is right and we have a lot of work to do in convincing people that they could be caught. Undoubtedly, one of the problems, among many others, is that they are not convinced of that. It will be partly up to the traffic corps to do that, and partly up to the Government to introduce legislation. The Government introduced legislation on road safety in 2016 as the Senator would be aware since it was initiated in this House. We intend to introduce measures to make disqualification automatic for people who are over the limit and other areas like that. It is a controversial area but it will be done. I take this very seriously but enforcement is part of it and it certainly will be stepped up.

I will address the points made by Senator Boyhan. He also referred to road safety and to the board. He was somewhat impatient about the fact that I have not made enough, if any, appointments to the board. The board was looking for a large number of extra people. I am not convinced under the new system I have introduced, which I will not go into in detail because my time is probably getting short-----