I am anxious to explain the position of Dublin at present. The public water supply can run dry in the southern part of the city during the wettest recorded period in history. That is the sort of situation which is developing in this capital city because of lack of attention, lack of planning and lack of commitment to the development of public services.
There is no doubt that the city of Dublin is being choked to death by traffic, by our own actions as individuals and by our lack of attention and lack of action as elected and responsible people. Recent figures published indicate that traffic congestion, snarl-ups, sitting in traffic and waiting about, cost CIE £1½ million last year in Dublin city alone.
There is always a cry about the enormous subsidy which has to be paid to this State body every year, but £1½ million of that subsidy was taken up by buses sitting in the middle of Dublin city, which could not move because the road authority had not got the roads to carry them. If it cost CIE £1.5 million, let us ponder for a moment on what the entire cost of congestion was when you consider the other public services and the private sector, all the transport which was delayed for so long in the course of one year.
Last year an additional 20,000 cars were registered in the city of Dublin. The figures I have show that there were 136,000 registrations of private vehicles in Dublin in 1972. By 1977 that figure had risen to 156,000 and in one more year it had risen to 176,000. The Minister of State said the figure has risen to 213,000. I am rather surprised at that but, if it is true, it paints an even grimmer picture. For the additional 20,000 cars which were registered with the taxation authority in Dublin last year, I wonder were there 20,000 yards of new roads built in Dublin, not miles, not meters, but yards.
It is quite clear to all of us that it is wrong for us to continue to rely in the main, as we have been doing, on private transport to move people from their place of abode to their place of employment. You cannot continue to operate a capital city in that way, a capital city set out in the unique geographic way Dublin is set out in, where there is no eastern outlet because of the containment of the sea, a restriction to the south because of the range of the Dublin-Wicklow mountains, and where the entire development, through a conscious planning decision, is in the three new cities being built in the western part of county Dublin. You cannot continue to rely on private transport being able to cope with the situation when road authorities are starved of funds and cannot build roads. Many people do not want those roads built anyway. The transport authority have not got the capital injection to provide the rail services and cannot move their bus services because of the lack of sufficient roadways. One of the suggestions put forward by the Minister last week, and by the Minister of State again today, was that there is a range of options which could be employed. The Minister suggested the introduction of flexi-time in the public service, as if that were the solution. Let us be honest. There are about 47,000 to 50,000 public servants and about 1,500 of them are operating flexi-time. Another option suggested was the staggering of school hours. In the winter the amount of staggering of school hours which could be achieved is very small unless we are to have young children travelling long distances in the dark.
The third option was the extension of parking restrictions. Have we not got sufficient harassment and annoyance already from the lack of parking space? Do we not all see the absolute disregard by many motorists for parking restrictions? Is the Minister seriously suggesting the solution to the traffic problem in Dublin is to extend the unforceable traffic regulations and restrictions which operate at present? Those were the three main options outlined by the Minister last week and, to some extent, re-echoed by his Minister of State this evening. They are not on. They are not solutions. They are short-term temporary attempts to improve the situation. They do not encompass any broad view of the problem and how to solve it.
We encouraged 20,000 additional registrations of private cars in Dublin last year. Since we began this discussion the price of oil has risen seriously and a further serious rise is threatened. Yet more and more we are encouraging people to rely on that form of energy. The public transportation authority at present are relying exclusively on oil as a form of energy. Very often it can take up to 90 minutes to travel from Tallaght into Dublin city centre. These are not figures off the top of my head. They are statistics from which CIE can show that quite regularly it takes their public transportation service 90 minutes to collect and carry passengers from Tallaght to Dublin city centre. Tallaght is one of the new towns into which we are forcing people, taking people and planting them. It takes another 90 minutes to collect them and bring them home again.
There are very stark facts relating to Dublin. I often wonder how few people in this House appreciate them, or are interested in them, or want to know about them. The population of County Dublin has doubled in the past ten years from 170,000 to 350,000 and the projection is that it will double again between now and 1991. Three new cities, not three new towns, are being built in the western part of Dublin county, in Tallaght, Clondalkin-Lucan and Blanchardstown. The city of Tallaght is scheduled to become as big as the city of Cork is today with a population of 120,000. The city of Clondalkin-Lucan and the city of Blanchardstown are scheduled to become cities with a population of 100,000 each, far bigger than Limerick or Waterford.
They will be the third and fourth largest cities in the State. Indications from population counts so far are that each one of those three cities is running ahead of the population projections. Have we made any effort to provide new road services out to them? Have we made any real effort to provide a realistic public transportation service for them? None whatsoever. One could have an interesting debate on the lack of other public services in those new cities, but tonight we are talking about public transportation and effective ways of dealing with it.
The Minister of State appeared to be a little bit confused as to which motion he was speaking to. There is a slight difference between the wording in Deputy Quinn's motion and the motion in the names of the Fine Gael Dublin Deputies. The Dublin transportation study was published in 1972 and envisaged a major programme of motorways and roads to be built over a 20 year period. Part of that was adopted by Dublin County Council and very recently part of it was adopted by Dublin City Council. By the time the city had got around to adopting it, the county had decided to scale down the proposals. They realised that because of the capital cost most of those motorways would not be built in the foreseeable future.
According to the Transportation Commission upon which both Ministers place such reliance, the Dublin city and county engineer has suggested that if the controversial eastern by-pass were to be built, it would take 11 years. The Minister of State berated the House because we suggested that the first phase of the electrification of the railways would take three years, not four years, and that this would be too long. Is he suggesting reliance on the roadways if the eastern by-pass will take 11 years to build?
The Transportation Commission on which the Ministers rely as their excuse for everything said it seemed that unless some measures are implemented traffic congestion in the Dublin area in the years immediately ahead will reach chaotic proportions. That is the Government's own Transportation Commission.
I want to deal with this commission which has been held up as the panacea for all ills, the fulfilment of an election promise. The Government will recall that the election was in June 1977. They took office on 5 July 1977 and they found a report which had arrived three months earlier from CIE setting out specific proposals for the building of phase 1 of their rapid rail plan, that was, the electrification of the Howth-Bray line. In September of 1978 this transport commission was set up. In January of 1979 it published its first paper and invited comments and it made it clear in that paper that excluded from its terms of reference was any consideration of phase 1 of the CIE proposals. Let there be no clouding of the issues; let there be no hiding behind this commission as there is so very often. First of all it took almost a year and a half to fulfil the simple election promise of setting up a transport commission and, when it was set up, excluded from its terms of reference was the electrification of the Howth— Bray line, phase 1 of the CIE proposals. It is there in detail on the Minister's desk. It is now, as Deputy Fitzpatrick pointed out, 20 months since the Government came into office. Yet they have not managed to make a decision on the electrification of the Howth—Bray line. In the meantime the cost has risen by approximately 25 to 33? per cent since the day they first took office.
The simple fact of the matter is that we are extremely lucky in the Dublin area because of the building, almost 100 years ago, of the coastal railway line running out through Blanchardstown and the railway line to the south. There are now existing permanent ways running out on a radial basis into the main population centres. If it had not been for the short-sighted, ridiculous attempt at removing the Harcourt Street line some years ago we would have had a further railway running unto the southern part of the Dublin commuter belt and every part of Dublin could have been served by rail lines. However, the Minister will realise himself whether he should thank his predecessors for that or not.
The situation is that there can be built by CIE, on their existing property and on reservations that have been held for them by the Dublin County Council in their development land, rail services to provide a transportation system that would allow 220,000 workers in Dublin to be brought from their homes to within 10 minutes' walk of their place of employment and the total disruption to private property to bring that about would be 20 houses. We are extremely fortunate that those permanent ways happen to exist, that they are of such a width that additional lines can be built out and that reservations were held by the planning authority in such a way that the land is still clear to take links up into Tallaght new town from the Cherry Orchard on the southern line and to take links up into Blanchardstown new town on the Broadstone line. In addition to that the suggestion of transferance to electrification of the rail services allows us an opportunity to reduce our dependence on one type of fuel. The existing rail service on the north-south line relies exclusively on oil. Mainline diesel trains which were designed and bought and built to serve on mainline services are now providing a hopelessly inadequate commuter service on the suburban lines. We are also being offered a unique opportunity, through the CIE proposals, to provide a transportation service not just for the city, not just for the north-south belt, as the Minister of State was inclined to represent, but to the new town of Blanchardstown, Clondalkin, Lucan and Tallaght as well, the new population centres, the three new cities. We can now provide lines that are free of urban congestion, that can move large masses of people rapidly from one centre to another with no pollution, no noise and no reliance on the Ayatollah.
The conclusions in the Final Report of the Dublin Rail Rapid Transit Study are worth quoting and are as follows:
The rapid transit system would operate free from the effects of urban congestion. The faster journeys possible have been reflected in the benefits used to evaluate the alternative systems. Additionally, the rapid transit systems would be capable of providing a reliable transport service over a large part of the city. The recommended system has sufficient spare track capacity for increases in trip demand beyond the 15-20 year planning horizon used in the study.
We believe that investment in the recommended plan would provide the City of Dublin with a system which allows considerably greater flexibility with regard to planning issues, opening the way for changes in parking policy, land use development, pedestrianisation of streets, and would provide a stimulus for the development of the new towns to the west of the city. It would provide an underground link along the length of the River Liffey in the city centre and, later, connect the dispersed office employment areas in the Ballsbridge corridor.
Incidentally, this Report was prepared by the same consultant who prepared the plan for Newcastle-upon-Tyne which the Minister told us about last week and said he had visited. I accept the Minister's interest in visiting Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I was inclined to shudder when I realised what he said when he described what was happening in Newcastle:
It will be interesting to see how it will perform in terms of passenger carrying relief of congestion and financial results.
Does that mean that nothing is going to happen in Dublin until it is discovered whether or not the new system in Newcastle is a success or a failure?
The simple fact of the matter is that the report made to CIE envisaged phase 1, the electrification of the existing suburban lines from Howth to Bray. Phase 2 was to build a new electrified line out on the line of the Dublin-Cork railway as far as the centre of the new Clondalkin-Lucan new town, the station there to be served by an internal bus service collecting people in the ends of the two new cities and bringing them into the station, with a new link being taken off at Cherry Orchard and running up into Tallaght. The difference between the 90-minute commuter journey on the bus from Tallaght along the non-existent roadways and the journey by rail would mean that a rail link running from Tallaght to Kilnamanagh, to the Naas road, to Cherry Orchard and into the city would take 19 minutes, noise free and pollution free.
Phase 3 was to take a link through Broadstone, through Cabra, Ashtown, the Navan Road, into Blanchardstown and a new link, on a reservation, into the Blanchardstown new town and with a further link running off that to take in the people from the new satellite town of Ballymun into the city in 11 minutes.
Both of the Ministers were suggesting that this is a plan that does not provide a comprehensive transport service for the city and its environs. Of course it does and if Harcourt Street rail line was still there the area directly to the south of Dublin could also be served by a rail service. CIE are now suggesting, because a bus way would not be appropriate in view of the removal of the bridges across Adelaide Road, that there should be a rail service on Harcourt Street line and connected into this new system.
As far back as 1971 the McKinsey Report commissioned by the Government said on page 33:
The commuter services more than justify their current losses when their social benefits are taken into account and their social benefits will become even more significant as the populations of Dublin and Cork grow bringing increased traffic congestion.
It was a fair enough thing to say, one would have thought, even in 1971. Yet the Minister, speaking at column 1561 last Wednesday about the proposed improvement of the Howth-Bray services which would attract additional traffic said:
There is no prospect that they could operate on a totally commercial basis meeting capital and interest charges.
Was anybody suggesting that they should? Have we not all accepted by this stage that CIE, to a large extent, provide not a commercial service in public transportation but a mixture of commercial and social services? Is anybody suggesting for a moment that if we handed the entire thing back to private enterprise that they would decide to electrify the Howth-Bray line and hope to make a profit? No one is suggesting that. What we are suggesting is that the losses in traffic congestion, the losses in pollution, the reliance on one type of scarce and rapidly diminishing commodity should be set against whatever operating losses would be envisaged not just in the electrification of the Howth-Bray line but in the provision of the new services into Tallaght, Clondalkin and Blanchardstown.
The favourite excuse is also trotted out by the Minister of State that there are no detailed proposals from CIE except for Phase 1. Of course there are not. Would the Minister put in detailed proposals for an entire transportation plan for Dublin city and county if he was hanging around for two years looking for a decision on Phase 1? Does the Minister make the excuse that he has not got a decision on the first set of detailed proposals because he has not got the last set of detailed proposals? Who is trying to fool who? The Minister is certainly not fooling the House and he is certainly not fooling the general public who have to travel on these services at present.
There are minor differences which I believe ought to be included in the CIE proposals. The link to Ballymun which I dealt with ought also to include a further link to Dublin Airport. My local authority has made this point repeatedly to CIE and I think eventually CIE will come around to acceptance of that point of view. In the long term that link could be carried right back through Swords and on to the northern line so as to provide a circular route there.
The simple fact of the matter is that what CIE have suggested as opposed to the existing services on the Dublin-Bray line would be that they would run from 6 o'clock in the morning until midnight or perhaps until 1 o'clock in the morning, a service to provide fast comfortable trains every five minutes at peak hours and every 15 to 20 minutes at other times. There would be on the entire system 47 stations ranged over approximately 40 miles of track serving the north, the south, the south-west, the north-west and the Ballymun area of Dublin city and county. That is the proposal before the Government in its outline form and in its detailed form as far as Phase 1 is concerned. They also envisage operating local bus services which would collect commuters from suburban estates and carry them in to each of the stations involved thereby eliminating very much of the public transport journeys by bus that have now to be taken from the outlaying areas directly to the city centre and into the areas of congestion.
Let us look at the existing rail service that we have in Dublin at present. They are generally operated by old, outmoded, outdated carriages designed originally as mainline carriages and which are still sometimes pulled off the suburban services at weekends and operated on the main lines. They are drawn by mainline diesel engines that are both slow and cumbersome, so slow to accelerate that by the time they reach their optimum speed they must be cut back again in order to be stopped at the next station. Most of the carriages are unheated. Many of them have doors that do not operate properly and most have at least one broken window. Very often the suburban trains running from Bray to Drogheda, and that is quite a distance, have sets of carriages in which there is not one public toilet. If one happens to be lucky enough even to get on a train that travels at night he may have to travel without light, without heat or other facilities. Now CIE have resorted to fitting plastic stacking chairs because apparently they cannot operate the ordinary sort of basic commuter service. The following is a quotation from a letter which I received in November last from the Chairman of CIE:
I do not think that you appreciate the difficulties which we are encountering through the lack of rolling stock. The numbers travelling on the Suburban rail services are increasing each week and the number of carriages which are available is reducing. We can either reduce the frequency of service or increase the capacity of the remaining carriages by providing more standing room. We have chosen to do the latter.
Further, he says:
I do not know if you are aware that many people travel in the Guard's Van because no other facilities are available when they board the train.
Last week the Minister told us that the Government are committed to the retention of these services. Where is the service? I invite either Minister present this evening to travel with me on any day of the week at any time they may wish on the Dublin suburban rail services and then on stepping off the train to say honestly whether there is any sort of decent service for the people of this capital city.
Inept and inefficient as the service is, with rolling stock that must be pulled off at 7 o'clock each evening because it requires a whole night's maintenance if it is to be used the following day, it has increased from about 10,000 passengers per day in 1972 to 27,000 passengers now. According to CIE the electrification of the rail line and the bringing in of a German firm to build the rolling stock and new signalling equipment could treble the number of journeys on the system. That would be of considerable relief to the overcrowding in Dublin.
Let us consider, too, the population aspect. Both the Green Paper and the White Paper indicate that there is not a high employment content in the scheme proposed by CIE but that scheme contains the equivalent of 1,500 jobs for 12 years. The Minister of State asks what we are to do in the short term and reminds us that the plan will take 20 years to complete. A motorway proposal also takes many years to put into effect. It is less effective and relies on the assumption that there will be sufficient fuel to provide for the additional number of cars envisaged by the transportation study. The simple fact is that there are 1,500 jobs for 12 years in the CIE proposals plus the jobs created by bringing into the country the firm that would build the rolling stock and the signalling equipment. That is a considerable amount of employment but in the short term we could examine the capital cost and decide not simply to sanction phase one but, in order to have a transportation service extending to the newer parts of the city, to link together phases two and three in order to bring electrified rail to Tallaght, Clondalkin, Lucan and Blanchardstown simultaneously. The system can be built over 12 years. Naturally, there would be a difference in capital cost but there is a considerable amount of employment involved. In addition, there is the considerable need for people to be able to move rapidly from one location to another if we are to meet employment prospects or to achieve any other aim we have for Dublin.
I accept that there is a need to create special lanes for public transport in the city centre but I do not foresee the road network being improved rapidly in the next few years. However, this way of relieving congestion in the centre city area will only contribute partially to a solution of the problem. Because there is so much land in the ownership of CIE along the lines of those permanent ways we are in the unique position of being able to provide a decent service out into the new towns and along the existing rail lines with only the disruption of a total of 20 houses. With his experience as a member of the City Council I should have been interested to hear the Minister of State say how many houses would be disrupted if the plans in the Dublin transportation study were implemented in respect of the building of roads and motorways through Dublin city. At peak times in this city, CIE buses move at a mere four miles per hour. As has been said that is slower than walking pace. I do not see an improvement in that situation in the short term but a considerable improvement could be effected by the electrification of the Howth-Bray line and in conjunction with that there could be electrification of the line as far north as Balbriggan or even Drogheda.
Those are the sort of options that are open in relation to moving large masses of people faster from the outlying locations to their places of employment. I am disappointed with the change in emphasis from the Green Paper, with its milk-and-water approach to the CIE proposals, to the White Paper which seems to be giving the thumbs down to these proposals generally.
In addition, we must consider the statements attributed to the Minister for Economic Planning and Development, a Minister who is inclined to speak a lot for himself. In a publication entitled Southside the Minister is quoted as saying that the rapid rail plan is not the only option for the future of suburban rail, that there is nothing to prevent modernisation of the existing system which could be done for less than one-fifth of the cost of the other option. Of course there is everything to prevent modernisation of the existing system. The signalling system needs replacing. The carriages are obsolete. I expect that people travelled on those carriages to the Eucharistic Congress.
I can only assume that the transportation system envisaged by the Minister for Economic Planning and Development must be on one of his own flights of fantasy. We have examined the CIE proposal with the utmost care and we are in favour of their option for the electrification of the first phase and the rapid extension of that into the following two stages for the provision of fast and efficient commuter services for the people living in the three new towns. We are in favour of the plan being condensed into a period shorter than 20 years. If we were in office we would implement such a plan and we shall implement it when we are in office.
