I move:
That Dáil Éireann takes note of the NESC Report No. 48—Transport Policy—conscious of the damage being done to industry and tourism as a result of the disastrous state of our road system and the serious inconvenience and cost to the general public, recognises the social importance of the public rail and bus transport system in providing equality of mobility for the community, calls upon the Government to ensure that it will not authorise the reduction of the public transport services, as provided by CIE, and requests the Government as a matter of urgency to reform the present duplication of transportation administration and to establish without delay a Transport Authority for the Dublin Region.
I hope this debate will be constructive because we are looking for decisions. At the outset I should like to welcome the Minister for Transport and to congratulate him on his appointment. I think he is in the business of making decisions and I hope that this debate, among other things, will speed up that process of decision-making. I say that because I was somewhat concerned with the covering press notice issued when the report was published by the Taoiseach's Department in relation to transport policy. I should like to quote from the second paragraph which stated:
The Minister for Transport expects to receive shortly from the Transport Consultative Commission its report on the arrangements for the provision of passenger transport services in the Dublin area. In addition, management consultants have been engaged to carry out a study of the financial position.
We are not short on reports but decisions are thin on the ground. I think I am right in saying that at one stage last year there were four major separate investigations into the operation of CIE and one of those investigations by the Transport Consultative Commission had three separate studies running parallel.
We are politicians and at the end of the day political decisions will have to be made. It might be useful to study the policy position in relation to transport as set out in the Fianna Fáil manifesto and as set out by this party. I think transport has been the poor relation of most political parties. This was demonstrated in the Fianna Fáil manifesto which stated on page 35:
Fianna Fáil will establish a transport authority to investigate and report on the measures necessary to achieve the most efficient and economic transport system for goods and passengers having regard to the need of maintaining a flexible competitive transport system and thereby ensuring the facilities necessary for industrial development through the country as a whole.
The manifesto then went on to refer to Irish shipping. In that short paragraph there is an indication of the priorities that predominate in Fianna Fáil policy. This is in contrast to our policy which stated the following on page 12 of our document dealing with the environment:
The freedom of access and equal mobility are essential to the creation of a socially just environment. Without these freedoms the environment cannot belong to everyone. The ability to travel to work, spend time at home and enjoy the open air of the natural environment depend dramatically on what form of transport is used. In turn, the use by many people of private transport in certain areas and at certain times can and does reduce other people's mobility and pollutes the atmosphere with exhaust fumes.
In both those paragraphs there is the spectrum of approaches to transport policy. The report by Professor Foster echoes that in many ways. From the point of view of the Labour Party it is a reactionary report in that its fundamental premise is very much a right wing economic one. The phraseology used in the report illustrates this point. He "reluctantly concedes the necessity to subsidise public transport". There are phrases such as "it would appear inevitable", "it cannot be denied", and there is the reluctant conclusion that public transport must be subsidised. He states that transport services are running at a loss which in economic terms having regard to the monopoly system existing is a nonsense. They may be running at a deficit. One could argue that the health and education services are running at a loss. We are bedevilled by the lack of clear political thinking on the attitude generally with regard to transport and particularly with regard to certain kinds of public transport.
If we regard public transport as something belonging to the market place, having to pay its own way, we will end up with the kind of conclusions reached by Professor Foster in his concluding chapter. The Labour Party position which has been argued successfully in the past—and it is something we are arguing now—is that public transport has to be taken out of the market place in exactly the same way as applies to health care and education if we are to have equal access to mobility. Of course there is a cost implied in all of this. The money has to come out of somebody's pocket and, given the taxation system any Government have to administer, it will come out of all our pockets. We are realistic about that. I hope the Minister and the Government once and for all will bury the right wing nonsense in economic terms that public transport is a function of the market while health care and education are not. I shall listen with interest to the Minister on this point. If we can establish a consensus in that area many of the subsequent political decisions that will have to be made will be easier. If I labour that point it is because I think it constantly gets in the way of people's attitude to the question of the CIE deficit, the cost of fares and the cost of financing a particular section of new railway or road system.
Our motion asks the House to take note of the NESC Report. I should like to point to some of these specific matters I referred to generally and to go through the conclusions in a fairly summary way. The report has been published and Deputies interested in the matter should read it. It is a comprehensive document and, despite its bias, we welcome it. In paragraph 11.9, page 135, it states the following in relation to the Irish railway system:
By any standards the rail services are now heavily subsidised.
In fact, figures made available by CIE indicate that government support per kilometre line in terms of Irish pounds in 1977 was the following: £15 for Ireland; £30 for the United Kingdom; £114 for the Netherlands; £56 for France; £69 for West Germany; £168 for Belgium; I am ignoring Luxembourg because the scale of the country distorts the figures; £84 for Italy and £48 for Denmark. The rail structure in Denmark and the size of the country are somewhat similar to Ireland and they can be compared and yet they had more than three times our rate of subsidy. Nevertheless Professor Foster—I gather he was well trained with Dr. Beecham—comes out with the statement that our rail services are heavily subsidised. There are many other examples of this kind of bias which was picked up by the media.
Paragraph 11.18 states:
There is no chance of a financially viable railway system, and in the long run it will be increasingly difficult to maintain the deficit at its current level.
If we were to say there was no chance of a financially viable health or education service, the public and political reaction would be strong. I am just giving this instance as an example of the bias in the report. In one disgraceful instance—in table 2, page 17 of the report—there is an attempt to make a comparison between investment in roads and the operating costs of CIE. It shows that expenditure on the upkeep of roads and the operation costs of CIE provide the ratio of GNP that both units of cost account for. It leaves hanging in the air the proposition that the railways are costing nearly three times our expenditure on the roads.
A fair analogy would be to compare the cost of the upkeep of the roads with the expenditure on upkeep of the railways. No reference is made in this table to the cost of the vehicles that travel on them. I am drawing attention to those things because they give my party some concern. This report cost a lot of money but conclusions are left hanging that somehow or other might influence the type of decisions which the Minister will ultimately have to make and present to the House. There are many other examples like that and I am sure the Minister's officials will have drawn attention to that one. There are, however, many positive things in the report.
The second part of our motion refers to the question of a transport authority for Dublin. This does not necessarily portray my Dublin bias but the reality in the city which I represent. It also confirms the first political motion I ever had the honour to move on Dublin City Council in August 1974 when I proposed and had accepted by the city council a call for a Dublin transportation authority. All of the arguments made then have been validated in this report and in many other documents. I am sure the Minister's file in the Department is fairly substantial at this stage with the proposals and the reservations taken by Finance in relation to the question of ongoing and increasing subsidies, the reservation by the road section of the Department of the Environment about ambiguity in relation to who would be responsible for the road system and the reservations by the Garda in relation to their requirements to exercise their task and still maintain their position as overall traffic management authorities.
The Minister at a dinner of the Chartered Institute was reported in a subsequent newspaper report as wishing to appoint a traffic supremo for Dublin. I do not have the reference, but the newspaper report stated that he was in favour of doing something fairly definite about the traffic situation in Dublin. I suggest to the Minister that rapid movement on the political problems attached to the establishment of a transport authority in Dublin would be one of the most effective things he could do in that area. All the technical arguments and proposals in relation to its establishment have been cleared, such as the option as to whether the transport authority should own their equipment or contract CIE to provide it. I believe there is a clear case in favour of getting CIE to contract.
The question as to who will maintain authority for roads has been fairly well argued and both sides of the argument are well documented in files in the Department. They are political decisions and it means transferring power from one Government Department to another and out of a Government Department to a third authority. Those are the difficult ones which the Minister must identify and put through the Cabinet and through the House. We recognise that this is not an easy task and that there is a certain degree of intransigence among some sections of the public service who fear that by losing a section of power and influence their overall position will somehow be diminished.
It is quite clear from my experience on the city council and on the traffic sub-committee that the kind of nonsense in terms of duplication which exists between the Garda authorities, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Environment. CIE and the local authority is getting in the way of an effective decision. One has only to look at the file in relation to bus lanes to see that clearly identified. The city council for at least four years have been in favour of bus lanes. A superintendent, having regard to his own function as a law enforcement officer and taking account of his job first and his traffic management job second, effectively stymied a democratic request, obtaining virtually all-party support in the city council, on the grounds that he does not have adequate staff resources.
The request which went to the traffic study group, a consultative body of various interests, for bus lanes as far back as 1974-75 always met this problem. I am glad to see that the Department has agreed to the bus lanes and that the first one has been opened today. I hope that works effectively. I am making the argument on the transportation authority and in turn that identified in the second part of our motion, which is the duplication of administration in transport.
The need for the transport authority is made all the greater because of the duplication in the administration of transport. It is nobody's fault that this has arisen. It appears to me, from the sidelines of Opposition, as a former member of the city council and as an Opposition Deputy in the House, that there is resistance in Government Department at different levels to the establishment of this authority. I should like the Minister to try to identify what the problems are in establishing such an authority, what bridges have to be crossed, what are the political problems and what kind of issues does the establishment of such an authority raise so that we can look at that politically and see if there is a collective position on it. I do not believe that Deputies in the House, except in relation to the resources which will be made available for transport, will divide very dramatically on different sides of the fence about the need for an efficient transportation system.
Most of us are frustrated with our inability to solve the transportation problems which are strangling this city. The chaos in the centre of Dublin, because our transportation is strangling the city and because the city is a major consumer of energy and a major port for the rest of the country, affects every farmer and every rural community in the country in a way that very few of them appreciate.
It is in the national interest that a political solution to the problem of the Dublin chaos is found without delay. I am jumping ahead of the press release from the Department of the Taoiseach in relation to the Foster Report by saying that the Minister does not really need any more reports. The McKinsey Report on CIE will not tell him anything more in relation to the establishment of a transport authority. The consultative commission under the directorship of Professor MacCormac will not add a lot more to the various reports which we have.
We require a commitment to establish the authority in the clear knowledge that the Government are in favour of a rapid rail system. It is to the Government's credit that they have agreed to this. I am on record as accusing the Minister's predecessor of not going ahead with the rapid rail system. If it was not for vigilance on this side of the House I do not believe that the rapid rail system would have gone through. I am aware that the commitment for the Linke Hoffman Busche section of the proposals has not been finalised. Obviously we cannot have a rapid rail system without the rolling stock. We are spending something in the region of £50 million a year out of a Capital Budget Programme of around £1,200 million. That expenditure of £50 million a year for the first five years of this decade would provide Dublin at the end of it with a rapid rail system, an entire underground and suburban rail system. That is not an astronomical figure. It is realistic. It is a figure we can cope with, but it implies choices about the mode of transport and the attitude to equal access and mobility for all citizens.
For example, the political weight of the Custom House in relation to roads enables them to constantly reiterate the necessity for a motorway system in Dublin. The price tag for that system in the county, it was admitted last Friday night, is a cool £1,000 million and there is no provision for it other than the road development plan for the eighties which does not provide that kind of expenditure for Dublin county. The Dublin city engineers will not give a precise price tag for their sections of their motorway system. It is an open cheque book situation in relation to both matters.
Every time the rapid rail proposal is raised it is denounced as being extremely costly. Here is a gem of a quote which continues the right wing economic bias. Paragraph 11.49 of the NESC report on transport policy reads:
Although the Dublin rapid transit system is attractive and according to the consultants' report economically viable, it would be costly. This raises difficult issues of priority, given other demands for finance both within and outside the transport sector, since the scheme would only serve limited corridors of the City of Dublin.
Even allowing for inflation, and if it were built over five years, the motorway system would cost £300 million. In the same period the construction of the County Dublin section of the motorway system would be in the region of £1,000 million. None of the right wing economists says the motorway system would be costly, to say nothing of the energy implications.
We welcome the decision to go ahead with the rapid rail system. We propose that this system be encouraged by clearing the ground in relation to the decision for Linke Hoffman Busche and that the second and third stages of that proposal be given the go-ahead. Now that a start has been made on that system and if it is proposed to give effect to the rest of the proposals, the argument for a Dublin transportation authority is being made even stronger because to operate that system there should be an overall transport policy for the Dublin region.
The final reason for a transport authority and for decisions which can be implemented fairly quickly is the scale of growth in Dublin. Our problems are on a relatively different scale from those of the rest of the country. The population of the city of Dublin is approximately 1.1 million. Conservative estimates state that by 1990 it will be 1.4 million, but my view is that it will probably be higher, certainly 1.5 million, and by the year 2000 the figure will be around 2 million. The effective city regions, in commuting terms, will stretch as far as Navan, Arklow and Naas.
A rapid rail transport system will determine the shape and configuration of the growth of Dublin. Dublin will expand in the next 15 years because of the pressures of population and the successes of various Government economic policies. I say that advisedly because, whatever their other defects, Fianna Fáil have promoted growth. It may not have been socially acceptable or socially just, but the growth is there; it can be measured and seen.
If we do not have a reasonable public transport system, that suburban growth will be low density and spread out. We only have about 15 or 20 years. After that period the shape of the city will be determined for our children and their children. The cost of making such a city transport system operate will be infinitely more expensive than it would be in a city with a rapid rail system. The social cost of trying to give reality to a political objective of providing some degree of equal mobility will be extremely high. Therefore there is a further argument in favour of the transportation authority in terms of it becoming a major instrument for urban development in the next 15 or 20 years.
For those interrelated reasons the recommendation in this report for the transportation authority is one we would like the Minister to look at without delay. We would like the authority to be established without delay. We would like the Minister to get clearance from the other Government Departments, especially the Department of the Environment, and to speak personally to the city council, the county council, the Dún Laoghaire Borough Corporation and, if necessary, to meet the local authority members from the adjoining counties to hear their views on the establishment of such an authority and what kind of political role there will be for public representatives. They have to have a role.
There is a necessity at the outset to establish clearly the split between the provision for capital and for extending the system and some degree of corporate planning that would enable such an authority to function on the basis of a five or ten year plan to provide for current account subsidies and to establish clearly what this Government's policy is in relation to social mobility and the idea of people being able to move at a reasonable cost within an urban region.
It is not clear what this Government's policy is in that area. We know there is an overall desire to reduce public spending, to get the economy back into the "black" and to minimise the deficit in CIE and in other areas, but that is a banker's instruction. It does not clearly indicate this Government's policy in relation to transport and to different aspects of transport policy. By way of contrast I read the relevant paragraph from the Fianna Fáil manifesto and a paragraph from our own policy. The House and the country would be served well if the Minister in his reply was able to indicate in some shape or form what this Government's policy is in that area.
The question of the duplication of transport administration at national level is a problem, and has been for a long time. It was inherited by this administration. The previous Government attempted to do something about it but nothing has been done about it for many years. There is no political credit to be got for accusing anybody of being politically wrong. On the Minister's desk there are numerous reports and the common line running through many of them is the desire to try to rationalise the administration of transport.
As far as our party are concerned, our formal policy position is that transportation is an integral part of the environment and should be amalgamated in the environment in such a way as to get the necessary co-ordination between urban and rural development and the transport system that functions and services it. With our knowledge of government we recognise that difficulties are involved. We recognise that the last thing the people in the Custom House want is responsibility for CIE. At the same time they want an open cheque book to build roads. Until we get the people responsible for the planning development and the building of roads working side by side with the people responsible for the provision of public transport services we cannot realistically start to design, present and politically administer a comprehensive, realistic transport policy. We in the Labour Party recognise the difficulties and will give the Minister the support he is entitled to in relation to this. It would be improper of me not to recognise the role of the Garda and the Minister for Justice which needs to be revised in relation to traffic control and management. We would see a transportation authority having specific responsibility for the management of traffic.
The city council's experience of the operation of the traffic warden system was a clear example of the breakdown in the split administration of traffic management between the local authority and the Garda. The Dublin City Council simply abandoned the warden system as a result and for about three or four months car parking regulations were not implemented in Dublin city with consequent chaos and frustration among drivers about double and triple parking.
These are all part of the same problem and the last two sections of our motion are inter-related. To set up a transportation policy at local level we have to deal at national level with the question of the duplication of administration. I urge the Minister to take courage in his new appointment and to seize the opportunity to make a name for himself, knowing that the Minister is normally a politically shy person who might be reticent about doing a thing like that.
