Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is substantially narrower than the width of this Chamber, let alone its length. I can only describe it by saying that if a truck went down it there would be a major crisis. This is proposed as the relief route for traffic going into the city. These are just two instances. Looking at the route running past my gate I began to wonder if this could actually be sustained. It does not involve taking any of my property from me, but can the road network sustain all this additional traffic? I very much doubt it.

When I looked at Long Lane, far away from leafy Ranelagh and towards the city centre, I said to myself that this is not a sustainable proposal. I do not see the analysis determining that it is sustainable. It is all very well for engineers to say where the bus route will run and decide that traffic will have to go hither and thither to make it possible, but we have to examine whether the remaining routes can actually sustain the diverted traffic. The analysis seems to be deficient. It seems to be concentrated solely on what the planners want to do with the assumption that the rest will cure itself somehow.

I want to raise a few other issues with the Minister. Anybody who drives in the city centre sees that electric scooters are proliferating. I approve of them and I do not think they are all that dangerous. Some people on racing bikes are twice as dangerous due to the fact that they go at great speed along congested routes with their heads down. The Minister's Department must come to a conclusion one way or another. Are they going to be permitted or not? By my reading of the road traffic legislation their use is illegal. I may be wrong about that but I think I am right. They should not be in a grey area.

I fully accept what has been stated here about driving tests, especially in rural Ireland. A student aged 18 or 20 who graduates and gets a job while living somewhere where he or she has to travel 15 miles to work will find this impossible without motor transport. There are no taxis or buses. There are no means of doing it. Perhaps someone can cycle five miles each day, but one cannot cycle 15 or 20 miles to get to work every morning. For a huge number of people it is not an option.

The procedure for getting a full licence should be made easier. In addition to increasing the number of driving tests and reducing the waiting list, we should consider approved courses which drivers can attend for three or four days. They could be examined and tested in an intensive process. This would allow drivers to spend, say, a week on concentrated learning at an approved motor college, get their licences and start work. I fully accept the Minister's view that unaccompanied drivers are unacceptable. They can be lethal. However, it is unrealistic to think that people can live in rural Ireland if they face long delays in getting their licences. If they fail the test the first time around it is a disaster. They have to reapply and wait for a long time.

Can the Minister confirm that all of the bus corridors in BusConnects will be open to taxis? That is not clear. We have to plan for more use of taxis in urban areas. I am fully in favour of what the Minister has in mind for bikes, but they do not suit everybody. We need more taxis. Since the deregulation of taxis there has been a massive expansion in taxi availability and use. We have to plan for more and more taxis as part of public transport, not just more and more buses.

Several projects for new Luas lines to Lucan and places like that were planned. Some of them had gone a significant way through the planning process. Are they completely dead ducks? I would also like to ask the Minister about the east-west underground DART proposal on which CIÉ, Irish Rail or whoever elaborated to a very significant degree. Is that now effectively dead? If it is not, why has Dublin City Council been refused planning permission for bridges on the basis that they might interfere with it? We need some up-to-date information. Have all those new Luas projects been abandoned for the foreseeable future? Is the underground DART proposal in suspended animation, or is it not being pursued?We must have clarity on these issues.