Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

There is a fundamental flaw at the bottom of this, which comes especially from the Green Party. It is the distinction between public and private transport. I am sure the Minister of State knows the route around Galway city well. That is not private; it is public infrastructure which is badly needed. There is no point in pretending, as Green Party members in Galway do, that it will be possible to provide some kind of Luas system there which will obviate the need for that circular route. It is public infrastructure. Likewise, the Sligo route mentioned by Senator Carrigy is public infrastructure. It is not private. It is not as if it is being given to some fat cat to make money out of. It is public infrastructure.

Some people have now got to the point of suggesting that the only public transport initiatives we should go for are where people share vehicles, be they rail carriages, Luas carriages, buses or taxis. Sharing the vehicle makes it public and having one's own vehicle makes it private. I do not think that is a reasonable division. Someone living in Dublin may need to go to Dunnes Stores two or three miles from his or her house to do the weekend shopping. There is no point telling such people to take a bus because they would need to be Charles Atlas to bring the shopping home and usually it is not the man in the house who does it. People need private transport. If they are going to be able to bring their children to crèche in the morning, get to visit their aged mother in the afternoon and do the shopping at some stage, as is the fate of many people, they need private transport and buses will not suffice, nor will bicycles. People cannot do the weekend shopping on a bicycle either. Let us be practical about this.

Regarding condemning the car, I heard Senator Boylan talk about forced ownership of cars. It is an absolute essential of people's existence in Ireland in the 21st century to have a car per household. It is not forced. It is not merely essential, but it is a liberating thing. While there may be some kind of a bus service, it will not be the kind of bus service to get someone into a local town at 8 p.m. coming home at 11 p.m. having seen a film or something like that. It will not be like that and we should not cod ourselves.

On the MetroLink project and on the Luas extension, Senator Cassells spoke about the amount of money being spent on the Navan train line. All the drawings are done and all the work has been done on it. The Luas line to Lucan has been shelved. We have already spent more than €100 million - it is probably nearly €200 million - on the MetroLink project and it will not start in the foreseeable future. It may never be built because there is a competing project, the underground DART system from Connolly to Heuston. Nobody is saying which of these projects will go ahead.

That is why I object so strongly to the plan that is being praised so widely here. It is not making the hard choices. It is not telling us whether it is MetroLink from Swords to Sandyford, whether it is Luas to Lucan or underground from Connolly to Heuston. We are not being told which the option is. They are all being thrown up there. While I am not trying to make a political point, any politician on the Government side can claim it is on the agenda and it has not been ruled out yet. However, this is dishonest rubbish.

We need a transport Minister who will say we are building the MetroLink and we are not building the underground DART or that we will build three more Luas lines on the surface in Dublin and that we are scrapping the underground DART. We need somebody who will actually tell the truth to people. We are not getting that kind of thing at all.

I am sorry to be divisive and I am very glad to be able to support Senator Boyhan's sensible amendment. It is the only sensible and real thing that will come out of this debate if it is accepted. It is about time we got real. The transport aspects of the development plan are nothing but an extended wish list and a kick-the-can-down-the-road job. We want to see what will be built and what will not be built. We want a realistic transport system, not just a thing that will get us through to the next general election, which is what we have at the moment.