The Dundrum bypass has been an objective of the county council for almost 30 years but remained unbuilt because successive Governments refused to fund it. It was only when the Southern Cross motorway became imminent the Department agreed to provide partial funding. During those years traffic conditions deteriorated, the cost of construction escalated and is now a high multiple of the original estimate. The disruption costs of construction are almost inestimable in an area of Dublin which is densely populated, with high car ownership, appalling public transport and even the main radial route is of a width and standard more suitable to the horse and cart than to the vast volumes of cars and heavy goods vehicles which use it every day.
The nightmare has now come to pass where the Southern Cross motorway will arrive at the top of Dundrum in 16 months. The only way for cars and trucks to access it will be by through the village itself or from the even narrower Sandyford Road. This area is already a permanent traffic jam. When the motorway opens and acts as a magnet to further traffic, there will be mayhem, not only on the motorway but across a swathe of south County Dublin, radiating out from Dundrum. The industrial estate on the Sandyford Road will be virtually inaccessible. I have no idea how the 12,000 people employed there will get to and from work.
This will be a national scandal of monumental proportions which will be featured in the media on a daily basis. This is an indictment of the public service and its ability to plan and deliver. It will give credence to those who criticise the public service at national and local levels and such criticism will be totally justified.
The sad thing is that this scenario was well signalled. The bypass was designed well in advance and could have been built four years ago had funding been available and avoided the construction disruption of building a motorway at the same time. Instead, the Department or the Minister decided that funding was to come from a private developer through whose land the bypass will run. Inevitably that development ended up with An Bord Pleanála, remained there for six months and was finally rejected.
A project of this magnitude and importance to the national road network should never have been made contingent on something as uncertain as a decision of An Bord Pleanála. It is now too late, even if the Minister was to hand me a cheque this evening, to have this vital approach road to the motorway in place in time for the arrival of the motorway itself. I am asking that the funding be made available immediately to minimise that period of mayhem so that it will be for months rather than years that people will suffer this disruption.
It would be unconscionable to make planning again dependent on the vagaries of a lengthy planning application, the outcome of which is uncertain. There are lessons to be learned from this example of how not to do public business, lessons which must be learned if there is to be any hope of achieving the targets set out in the national development plan or of achieving the Minister's own house building targets. Increasingly local authorities are dependent on private developer funding for water, sewerage and road projects. This works fine until any one of those private developers falls foul of the planning process. Then the development of the entire area comes to a standstill. I can point to examples where this is happening again and again.
This way of doing business might make sense if there was no money in the Exchequer but there is and it must be put into the development of our infrastructure if any progress is to made. I am not suggesting that the private sector should not contribute to infrastructure, particularly that which facilitates development, but it could be recouped later. A project like the Dundrum bypass should not be made dependent on a private planning application.
It is too late to avoid the public opprobrium which will be heaped on the Minister's head for this disastrous management of public business. Something could, however, be rescued if the funding was provided to commence construction even at this late stage.
