Thank you for giving me an opportunity to raise this matter on the Adjournment.
I am sure the Minister is aware that as we draw closer to the decision day for the Luas EU funding, there is understandable public disquiet, particularly in the areas which hoped to be served by Luas, with regard to the future of the project. This disquiet has been fuelled by conflicting media reports on the outcome of the consultants' study. I do not know where these reports are coming from, the spin they are seeking to put on the story or whose agenda they are pursuing, but it is time for the Minster to clarify the position.
In her media response to my remarks last Monday she stated the consultants' report had not yet been written and that she had no idea what it would say. While I accept the consultants' report may not yet be written, I do not accept they have not reached a conclusion. I find it difficult to believe the Minister is not privy to the conclusions they have reached. If I were Minister, and on two consecutive Sundays two different newspapers gave details of the outcome of a report I commissioned — on which at least £100 million of EU funding depended and for which the deadline was only weeks away — I would have lifted the telephone and demanded a briefing from the consultants. The public finds it difficult to believe the Minister has not inquired as to the veracity of the reports. If she has received the report it is time to share the information with Dubliners.
I realise I am rapidly becoming an irritant to the Minister and a bore on the topic of public transport for Dublin. I also believe she is genuinely bewildered at the strength of public feeling on the issue of Dublin traffic congestion, but if she lived and worked here she would have some appreciation of the frustration and pessimism of most Dubliners.
The Minister is the only person who can solve the problem by investing in public transport. Her dismissive attitude towards those who raise concerns about the problem has only deepened public despair and undermined public confidence in the ability of the political system to grasp the nettle on this issue. The Minister gives the impression that there is no urgency in dealing with the Dublin traffic problem. She appears to have adopted an indifferent attitude towards it.
There is virtual unanimity that the solution is to invest in public transport. The public finds it difficult to understand why the Minister does not accept this. Every time the matter is raised in the House she recites the plan of the Dublin Transportation Office which has constantly admitted that its plan is too little and too late. Even if Luas started to run today, it would be too late to solve the transport problems in Dublin due to the growth in employment and so on.
I want the Minister to answer a number of questions. Is the original project, as designed, being recommended by the consultants and can we proceed with it immediately? If not, and either a full or partial underground system is being recommended, has the Minister or her Department made interim plans to allow the two lines run as far as the city while the underground system is being designed? If she does not have any such plans, how does she propose to utilise the Luas money? Can we have a guarantee the money earmarked for Luas will be spent on public transport in Dublin and that priority will be given to the areas which would have been served by the Luas project? These are legitimate questions which all Dubliners are asking.
