Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 13 Feb 2002

Vol. 548 No. 3

Private Members' Business. - Traffic and Transport: Motion (Resumed).

The following motion was moved by Deputy O. Mitchell on Tuesday, 12 February 2002:

That Dáil Éireann condemns this Government for its abject and complete failure to address the traffic and transport chaos of the greater Dublin area and other urban centres.

Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"welcomes the achievements of the Government in upgrading transport infrastructure and services in Dublin and throughout the country and, in particular:

–welcomes the increased investment in transport infrastructure since this Government took office;

–welcomes the progressive implementation of the NDP which provides for the investment of €12 billion in transport over the 2000-06 period and the demonstrable progress made in 2000 and 2001 in implementing this investment programme;

–welcomes the significant increase in capital investment in public transport during the lifetime of the Government, including the provision of over €400 million in Exchequer capital funding for public transport in 2002;

–welcomes the progress being made with regard to Luas and the Metro;

–notes that the DTI strategy update, A Platform for Change, provides a comprehensive, updated framework for meeting Dublin's transport needs;

–notes the progress being made in the upgrading of the national road network in the greater Dublin area where work has commenced on the Dublin port tunnel, the south-eastern motorway, the Cloghran-Balbriggan motorway, Kildare bypass and Glen of the Downs project and in Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford where major projects have been completed in recent years, are under way or are well advanced in planning;

–welcomes the increased investment in non-national roads, including projects such as Macken Street Bridge, Cork Street-Coombe, Mercer Street and North King Street, which are particularly important for traffic management purposes;

–welcomes the 2002 provision of €49,633 million for traffic management grants in the greater Dublin area and other urban areas in which traffic management strategies are being developed or implemented;

–welcomes the increased numbers of taxi licences available since liberalisation in November 2000 and the recent publication of a consultation paper for the purpose of developing further qualitative improvements in taxi services;

–welcomes the purchase of a significant number of new buses for Dublin and the provincial cities;

–notes that nine QBCs are now providing bus priority routes in Dublin;

–notes the progress being made on the DART network by the purchase of 38 new DART carriages, which will result in a nearly 50% increase in capacity;

–notes that capacity on the Maynooth line has recently been increased by approximately 150%;

–notes the significant progress being made on the rail safety programme;

–notes the commitment of the Government to strengthen the institutional arrangements for land use and transport planning in the greater Dublin area through the establishment of a Greater Dublin Land Use and Transport Authority; and

–welcomes the Government initiative to undertake a strategic rail review which will provide a blueprint for the future development of the rail network."

(Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Molloy).

Mr. Stagg:

Last night I said that the Luas project was effectively abandoned and I reiterate that. It was replaced with one token line that will run from Tallaght to St. Stephen's Green. The only reason that token line was left in was to save face for the Minister, Deputy O'Rourke, who failed to put the metro proposal into operation. It was replaced by an announcement by Government that a new metro system would be put in place and would be available after 16 years. My views on the incompetence and disastrous tenure of Deputy O'Rourke as Minister for Public Enterprise are well known and have been expressed in this House on many occasions.

In the short time available I want to refer to the principles that will inform the Labour Party's approach to public transport rather than waste my time reviewing the record of a Minister who, luckily, will be out of office in a few weeks' time. The Labour Party believes that four key principles should be the cornerstone of public transport policy. Those principles are sustainability, social inclusion, urban citizenship and fostering genuine growth. Those principles will inform the Labour Party approach to this issue in the coming years. In my brief contribution, I will confine my remarks to the transport challenges facing the greater Dublin area. However, the Labour Party does not believe public transport is solely an issue for Dublin, Cork or other major urban centres. We recognise the chronic lack of public transport that afflicts rural Ireland and it is not an issue we will ignore.

Over the lifetime of this Government the transport situation in the greater Dublin area has deteriorated on a huge scale. The Government has adopted a ramshackle approach to it. The only clear Government line comes from the Ministers, Deputy McCreevy and Deputy Harney, and that is part of the problem. That wing of the Government is opposed to the concept of public transport while paying lip service to it.

To tackle the mess this Government will have left behind, the Labour Party proposes the establishment of a greater Dublin regional authority that will encompass the administrative areas of Kildare, Meath, Wicklow and Dublin. This authority is essential if we are to overcome the administrative and structural confusion that is a hallmark of Dublin's transport policy at present. It would be an elected authority with a democratic remit.

The Labour Party will also strongly advocate the front loading of public transport investment. Fianna Fáil's failure in relation to Luas, quality bus corridors and to rail and bus investment will be reversed. Public transport investment must be front loaded to achieve the implementation of the Dublin Transportation Office plan. The Labour Party is determined to provide the capital funding to ensure the huge gaps in the capital's infrastructure will no longer exist. We will invest in a high speed rail link to Dublin Airport, the third phase of Luas and integrated ticketing. We will provide the citizens of Dublin and beyond with a public transport infrastructure that will remove the near total reliance on the private car.

Some speakers in this debate have taken the Progressive Democrats line that privatisation and competition is the quick and easy solution to public transport problems in Dublin. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Labour Party will examine the structure and management within the CIE group of companies but it will not contemplate privatisation. We do not believe the handing over of public transport operations to private capital is in the best interests of consumers. Privatisation will lead, as we saw in Britain, to cherry picking, profit chasing and a deterioration in services to citizens, particularly commuters.

The last few years have, at last, seen the introduction of quality bus corridors in the Dublin region. The completion of the quality bus corridor network is behind schedule but where it is in place, it provides a fine service to commuters. This is public road space reserved for public transport services in the public interest. Is this public space, which is owned by the people and which has been reserved for public transport after a long campaign, to be handed over to private capital and the pursuit of profit? It makes no sense in terms of public transport, it only makes business sense for a small minority of entrepreneurs. However, we know the influence certain entrepreneurs have among senior Ministers in this Government and we saw examples of it in the past few days.

I give the House a commitment that the Labour Party in Government will purchase sufficient buses, the workhorses of public transport, to fill the bus lanes and to provide a quality public transport system for the citizens of this city and beyond.

Mr. Collins:

I reject the motion tabled by the Fine Gael Party. The Fine Gael suggestion that this Government has failed to address transport issues in urban centres is simply false. The Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, defended the Government's policies in the transport area and outlined what is being achieved to alleviate traffic congestion in our capital city and throughout the country.

In recent years the Irish economy has grown at a substantial rate and this has brought new challenges in terms of addressing different transport problems. More traffic on the roads has certainly strained existing road networks and the Government is aware of the absolute importance of developing local, secondary and national road networks to a greater extent. Car ownership has increased by 40% since 1992, with more than 1.2 million private cars now on our roads. The Government is aware of the work that must be carried out on the road network to guarantee that the roads are brought up to a higher standard and can be maintained as traffic volume increases.

There are nearly 6,000 kilometres of primary and secondary roads in Ireland and more than 90,000 kilometres of regional and local roads. The primary objectives of the Government's road transport policy are to improve bottlenecks and reduce journey times; to improve internal road transport between regions and within regions, which will help to foster more balanced regional development; to facilitate better access to and from ports and airports to offset the negative effects of peripherality; to contribute to sustainable transport policies by continued economic growth and regional development while ensuring a high level of environmental protection; and to achieve the objectives of the Government's road safety strategy in relation to the reduction of fatalities and serious injuries caused by road accidents.

The objectives of this integrated transport investment programme are set out in the National Development Plan 2000-2006. Key features of this programme include a focused development strategy for our national primary road network and improvement of national secondary roads, which is of critical importance for economic development and balanced regional development. Equally, the Government is committed to improving the quality of county and regional road networks which play such an important role in the economic life of so many people in rural areas.

I welcome the figures released by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey, last month outlining expenditure plans for 2002 as part of the national roads programme. These figures clearly demonstrate that actual expenditure has exceeded the national development plan forecasts by more than 10%. The national development plan for the year 2002 forecast spending of €922 million on national roads while actual expenditure for this year will be €950 million. The plan forecast spending of €520 million in 2000 and €780 million in 2001 while actual expenditure for these years was €622 million and €907 million, respectively. The expenditure this year will be maintained notwithstanding the more challenging economic conditions that prevail at present.

The Government is committed to the construction industry. In the budget last December, tax incentives were introduced which will help the construction industry to deal with the changing economic environment. The construction industry is growing, but at a more sustainable level. In the Department of the Environment and Local Government's annual review, Construction Industry – Review 2001, Outlook 2001 – 2003, there were some key findings. Growth in the volume of building output was almost 3% in 2001 and continued growth in building output is projected at 3% in both 2002 and 2003. Direct employment in the construction industry continues to grow and had reached 180,000 people by the end of 2001. Construction output in Ireland is estimated at 17% of GDP, which demonstrates the important role this sector plays in our economy.

In addition, €2.7 million is being spent per day on the national roads improvement and maintenance programme. This maintains investment in the national road network at a high level, more than three times higher than the 1997 level of €324 million.

A cornerstone of Government policy is a commitment to balance regional development, as it does not want to widen the gap between rural and urban Ireland. We have implemented wide-ranging programmes to support rural towns and communities. Its commitment to implementing a new spatial strategy will ensure that rural towns will develop in a sustainable and structured manner.

A measure which will ensure the success of this strategy is increased support for the development of our county and rural road network. Contrary to what the Opposition may say, the Government has substantially increased the level of grant allocations for the development of these roads. On 18 January last, it announced an increase of 9.4% in grants for non-national roads in 2002. The Opposition does not like statistics which demonstrate the Government's commitment to local roads. In 2002, €438 million was provided for non-national roads, double the 1997 allocation of €219 million by the rainbow Government. As a Member for Limerick West, I recognise the important role that rural roads play in our daily lives. County roads are the key transport arteries for rural communities and the Government's support for this network must be welcomed.

The Government's commitment to a strong regional policy means that the local secondary and national road network in areas such as the mid-west and County Limerick are being improved substantially. In my constituency, the national development plan is injecting substantial funding to upgrade the following road network – Limerick, Askeaton, Foynes, Glin, Listowel, Tralee – the N69, Abbeyfeale, Newcastle West, Rathkeel, Adare, Patrickswell to Limerick – N21, and the Charleville-Croom-Patrickswell road. Substantial progress has been made in upgrading the road from Adare to Limerick, while a bypass will circle the city to the south.

Such networks are important if we are to have balanced investment in all areas. If inward and indigenous investment for areas such as County Limerick is to be secured, key infrastructures such as roads and telecommunications must be of the highest standards. This is important to ensure that we remain competitive in a challenging economic climate. The Government is committed to ensuring that job creation is achieved in all rural and urban areas and a vibrant, successful transport network is a key element of that.

As I stated before, a vital part of the Government's strategy is to ensure better access to our main ports and airports. I, therefore, welcome the allocation of over €1 million to upgrade facilities at Foynes harbour, County Limerick, an extremely important port on the western seaboard. The Government is also developing road access to the port to ensure that cargo unloaded there reaches its market destination quickly. The Government also has a strong airport policy and Shannon is now home to more than two million passengers a year. Ports, airports and roads are central cogs in ensuring that the Government has a successful transport policy.

No one can deny that the rapid growth in the economy did not bring difficulties. The massive increase in car use meant that the Government had to act quickly to ensure that all elements of transport operated effectively.

The Government's commitment to that network is also matched by a commitment to road safety. Road deaths are too high and the Government's road safety strategy, the first of its kind, has helped reduce the level of fatalities. A strong commitment to road safety must remain a central component of Government policy.

Mr. McGuinness:

I welcome the opportunity to debate this issue and acknowledge the huge investment in transport infrastructure in the past four and a half years. Much has been achieved and much remains to be achieved. It has been achieved against a backdrop of a huge increase in the number of employed and of those returning from abroad who were given the opportunity by the economic boom to play their part and share in what was happening.

I acknowledge the €12 billion invested in transport for the period 2000-06 and the €400 million capital funding for public transport in 2002. I welcome the emphasis on the development of the regions and the need for all the country to share in the wealth. Dublin gets special mention, as do many other urban centres such as Cork, Galway and Limerick, which is correct as people living in or travelling to the capital, other urban centres and ports must have proper facilities such as the Luas, the Metro and roads.

It is equally important to acknowledge that there is a growth in the numbers living in the country and commuting to Dublin or another city daily to work. They may have moved to the country for the quality of life and want proper road and rail access to their workplace. Many Members of this House cannot do that. For example, I cannot travel here daily by rail because the rail company has not upgraded the line from Kilkenny or Waterford to Dublin, despite its representatives appearing before a committee some years ago to state that it would do so. It deprives people of the public rail transport to which they are entitled. Recently, the Minister answered a question about the rail line from Waterford, but the company is not paying attention to representations made by people like me or the commuting public.

Mr. R. Bruton:

Who funds the company? It is the Deputy's party.

Mr. McGuinness:

The Deputy had his chance to speak and his speech, which was only about Dublin, lacked vision and policy.

I acknowledge the traffic problems around Dublin because of economic developments in the regions. There are traffic problems elsewhere and local authorities must invest much money in getting consultants' reports on how to manage these. There is no quick fix solution, but a costly process must be undertaken. I ask the Minister to ease the criteria for grants and make available proper funding to local authorities to get these reports.

The completion of ring roads or outer relief roads around cities such as Kilkenny is vital. It is many years since the last leg of the Kilkenny ring road was completed. The NRA is due to announce shortly the decision on an application to complete this road. This road and a similar one planned for Carlow are the best means of dealing with traffic in cities of that size because they remove heavy goods vehicles from the cities and improve the quality of life there.

Speed of delivery is the key issue in implementing plans. The plan for Kilkenny is there and I appeal to the Minister to ensure that it is incorporated in whatever infrastructural plan is envisaged for the city. There is a great need for public private partnerships, particularly in the regions. For example, in my constituency Kavanaghs operate a bus service to Dublin and around the region and there is a need for a partnership with Bus Éireann to ensure the entire area is covered. In that way the service can be expanded and everyone can access it. It is a wonderful service for students and those who work outside Kilkenny and the south-east, but one company cannot provide such a service by itself. It needs to connect with others in the market that are providing an efficient, cost-effective service. It would do Bus Éireann no harm to engage with companies such as Kavanagh's to ensure there is an all-embracing service to the benefit of commuters.

I have referred to people who must work away from home and, whether one travels by car or rail, it is important that services are available and that train times, for example, coincide with market demands. That aspect must be developed. The problem is not a lack of investment –€12 billion is earmarked for the construction programme – but speed of delivery, as effected by the speed of the developing economy. We need more public private partnerships for transport and road infrastructure to ensure we get a satisfactory solution to this problem. The Government has outlined a complete package to deal with these issues. It has funded and continues to fund various initiatives, so it is now down to the speed of delivery as against a growing economy, taking into account that the economy has slowed a little in recent months. We are now in a position to deal with the issues in a more practical way.

Mr. P. Carey:

I wish to share my time with Deputy Roche.

Acting Chairman (Cecilia Keaveney):

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. P. Carey:

This is at least the third time since I was elected in 1997 that we have addressed this issue and each time the Opposition has come up with something different. The first time Opposition Deputies said we did not have enough buses and that those we had were spewing out black smoke. We have 400 or so new buses, quality bus corridors—

Ms O. Mitchell:

There are 195.

Mr. P. Carey:

We are now dealing with the problems of success. There are a lot more cars on the roads and more people are at work. We need more efficient public transport – that goes without saying. The southern cross route is all but complete – it will be finished this evening – and there is the Balbriggan bypass. It is a great pity that previous Governments did not plan ahead like this one to ensure the M50 had the capacity that is required. Deputy Richard Bruton and I are aware of the Dublin port tunnel project, the biggest ever undertaken in the country. Of course it is causing some headaches but it will take 9,000 heavy goods vehicles a day off the streets of Dublin. That will be a major improvement and those living in Whitehall and Fairview are to be congratulated on their patience in the interests of a better city. The logical consequence of that is the continuation of the south-eastern motorway across Sandymount to link with the southern motorway. Slip roads have also been introduced at various points along the M50.

We were castigated because nothing was done about light rail. Luas is there—

Ms O. Mitchell:

It is not.

Mr. P. Carey:

Opposition Deputies said we did not mean what we said and we would not do what we promised, but it is being done. The Red Cow depot, as the Deputy well knows, is ready. If one drives around St. Stephen's Green at present one will see Luas-related work in progress. The project will be completed on time. The metro will also be of great benefit to the community. We badly need a link between the city and the airport. DCU is in Deputy Bruton's and my constituency and I am determined that the Government and any future Administration in which I have a say will continue with the project—

Ms O. Mitchell:

It will go nowhere near DCU.

Mr. P. Carey:

If Deputy Mitchell listened instead of nodding her head every so often we might get somewhere.

The metro cannot be built overnight, nor can the Luas. We will be judged by what we do. We have delivered Luas and we will continue to complete it. The next Government, in which Fianna Fáil will be a major partner, will also consider the metro as a significant project – it has been extended.

My only complaint about the much-maligned quality bus corridors is that it takes so long for them to come on stream. Bus capacity on those routes has increased significantly and those coming on stream this year, in Ballymun and Swords, will take a huge number of car passengers onto the public transport network, which is important. Owen Keegan, the Dublin director of traffic, is much maligned but is doing a good job.

My criticism is the absence of an integrated ticketing system. For example, Bus Éireann runs buses from outside Dublin where buses are operated by Dublin Bus. There is also the DART and we will have the Luas. There is a need for those to be integrated, sooner rather than later, and there should be no excuses. I compliment the DTO for the way it has managed traffic and parking around the city. It was impossible up to three or four years ago to get a parking space anywhere in the city but now it is possible and relatively easy. One has to pay to park and sometimes one must put up with being clamped. However, traffic within the city's inner core is now moving quite freely. There are environmental traffic cells and traffic calming schemes operating in all the neighbouring areas. That has all been delivered as part of the Government's transport policy. Much has been done and much remains to be done, but that is not due to lack of investment. There is every likelihood that we will have a quality bus service which will be equal to that in any other European city. I commend the amendment.

Mr. Roche:

I thank Deputy Carey for sharing his time with me. The difference between Opposition and Government is that in government one is expected to deliver. The section of the universe occupied by the main Opposition party is a sort of Terry Pratchett parallel universe. It is important to compare the record with the reality.

The track record of the rainbow coalition on public transport, whatever about its other achievements, was absolutely derisory. The Government has made the biggest single investment in public transport in the history of the State. When the last Government was in office it invested a derisory amount of money in public transport. If Opposition Deputies are so concerned about public transport and the gridlock that goes with success in the city, it is important they say why so little was done then. When Deputy Belton was speaking on the Finance Bill, he said that when the Government took office in 1997, the Celtic tiger was purring but public transport certainly was not.

In the two years the rainbow coalition was in government it put less than £15 million in new investment in public transport. That is a scandalous figure and Opposition Deputies should be deeply ashamed of it. In 1999 alone the Government committed 20 times as much to public transport as the previous Government did in the best years it held office. In 2000 for the first time public investment in public transport touched the €250 million mark. In 2001 public investment in transport rose to £271.5 million, €345 million. The increase in the level of investment between 1996 and 2001 in public transport was 679%. Whatever one might blame the Government for, one cannot say it did not invest in public transport.

As regards the DART, in 1995, with a few days to go to the by-election in County Wicklow, the then Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Deputy Lowry, arrived in Greystones with a broken down DART carriage on the back of a railway flatbed truck and promised us the sun, moon and stars. The broken down carriage was hauled away later that night after the Minister had left. When the party opposite left office two years later not one single penny had been put aside for investment in the DART expansion. That was a scandal because it was a specific promise given to voters in Greystones in 1995 and it was not delivered on.

The DART extension to Malahide and Greystones was completed and funded during the Government's term of office. For the first time since the DART system was created, additional rolling stock has been brought in. Capacity on the DART system has been increased by 50% in the past two years. All Governments, including those in which Fianna Fáil was involved, did nothing to increase DART services.

Ms O. Mitchell:

The Deputy is incorrect.

Mr. Roche:

I am not sure what the Deputy is muttering, but she will get her chance. She can rest assured, as can the House, that her party put nothing into the DART services while in government.

Ms O. Mitchell:

I am pointing out that capacity on the DART has not been increased by 50%.

Mr. Roche:

The Deputy's party promised an extension of the DART to Greystones, but not one penny was spent on it. We were also promised an improvement in the DART system, but not one rail carriage was bought. That is the record. It is ludicrous for Deputies on the other side of the House or for any other apologists of that miserable Government to talk about the state of public transport in either this city or Ireland in general.

Mr. J. Bruton:

That is partisan claptrap.

Mr. Roche:

Another measure of the Government's commitment to public transport is the fact that the subvention to CIE has been substantially increased. Since 2001, as Deputies John and Richard Bruton and other Deputies know, 20 new diesel cars have been delivered for the suburban rail network for the first time in years. We have 26 new DART cars while 12 new additional DART cars were delivered last autumn, which will come into operation later in the spring. The Government has done significant things to improve the quality of public rail transport, particularly commuter transport, in the city, county and surrounding counties.

The improvement in the situation at Dublin Bus is more dramatic. Some 275 additional buses and 100 replacement buses were delivered up to the end of 2000. How many were delivered when the party opposite was in charge? The answer is none. Some replacement buses were provided, but there was not any additional stock. One or two of the Opposition Deputies made one acute and correct observation. I query the fact that all the buses delivered are diesel driven. Some of the Opposition Deputies and I have argued at the Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport that it is scandalous that all the buses which have been ordered by the CIE group have been diesel driven. They should be gas driven. When a del egation from the committee went to France earlier this year we were given figures which completely questioned what had been provided by the CIE group.

We must move forward with an integrated public transport system which works. It is a fact that notwithstanding the improvement in funding in systems, such as DART, services are still not up to standard. The schedule of services which were supposed to be delivered on the DART lines to Greystones and Malahide are not in place, but not because the Minister of the day has not put the money into them. There is something fundamentally wrong with management in the company which must be addressed. For the past ten to 15 years Deputies on all sides of the House have spoken about an integrated ticketing system for Dublin, but we do not have one. That is a scandal. The political will and the willingness to provide funding have been there, but I wonder where the shortfall has been.

We have a complex issue in a vibrant and growing city in a hinterland which is growing dramatically. We should not engage in the type of debate in which we engage too often. We should look for solutions rather than slogans. The Government has delivered.

Mr. J. Bruton:

I wish to share my time with Deputies Richard Bruton, Cosgrave, Kenny, Seán Ryan, Fitzgerald and Sargent.

Acting Chairman:

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. J. Bruton:

People's quality of life will be a key, if not the key issue, in the forthcoming general election. The quality of life being led by many people in my constituency of Meath is adversely affected by the failures of our public transport system and infrastructural planning. If one is driving towards Dublin on the M50 early in the morning – I am sure it is true in other areas also – one will see a woman driving her car with her children in the back seat having their breakfast. Those children have probably got up an hour previously and will not arrive at the crèche in Dublin in which they are staying for a further hour because of traffic. They will then have to repeat the exercise in the evening. The result is that they have an extremely stressed life. When they are of schoolgoing age and their mother and father continue to work and spend up to four hours per day in the car, they will not see their parents. They will be looked after by their parents only at weekends and by someone else during the week. While failures of public transport are not the sole reason for adversely affecting the quality of life of this and the next generation, they are a large part of the problem. That is the reason quality of life issues will be important in the forthcoming general election.

I wish to focus on five or six issues which directly affect my constituency. I express my disappointment that the budget which contains allocations for capital expenditure on rail and bus development up to 2004 does not contain any provisions for the development of a rail link to Navan. This has been spoken about by Government politicians in County Meath in the past, but does not seem to be a priority now as far as the allocation of funds is concerned.

I welcome the significant improvement in bus services by Bus Éireann in County Meath. This is acknowledged by my constituents and I give credit to all who deserve it. However, I regret that park and ride facilities have not been provided anywhere in County Meath or in the area surrounding Dublin. While the Government has provided tax incentives for park and ride facilties, these have not been taken up because there is no authority with the ability to buy the site upon which the park and ride facility can be provided by the private sector.

The Government's policy in relation to road tolls is perverse. I will illustrate this by reference to my constituency. There are road tolls on the M50, the result of which is that heavy vehicle traffic does not go around the M50, which is built to accommodate it, but through towns, such as Maynooth, Dunboyne and Ratoath, to avoid paying tolls. The Government is intent on doing the same throughout the country. Tolls will be installed on the roads to Cavan and Drogheda, the effect of which will be that heavy vehicles will be diverted into small villages which are unsuitable for such traffic. If we are to have tolls, they should be on heavy vehicles in cities, not on bypasses. We are putting the tolls in the wrong place. We are putting them where they should not be, rather than where they should be in terms of sustainable traffic development.

There is a major problem with the internal management of CIE. The Government should not own the public transport company. It should lay down the rules under which public transport should operate, but there is not any need for it to be the owner-manager. The industrial relations situation in CIE is in part due to the fact that its agenda is politically driven and the subject of political interference. There is always an appeal against anything decided by management to the Minister of the day, whoever that might be. This has a negative effect on the development of a public transport service.

I believe very passionately in the development of public transport but I do not believe it needs to be publicly owned. Public transport should be regulated by the Government rather than owned by it if we want it to thrive and grow.

Mr. Cosgrave:

The disregard of the problems faced by the Dublin commuter is a true reflection of the ongoing inability of this Government to get it right. Today we have a city which this Administration is bringing to a standstill. The amount of time wasted by this, and the cost to both the public and private sectors, is incalculable. We have roads that are congested, a bus service that is less than that of three years ago and train links which have become sardine cans for the travelling public.

The abject abandonment of leadership as demonstrated by the Minister for Public Enterprise will guarantee her a place in the annals of political history. We are all aware of the growth in population and the resulting increased demands from commuters, yet the Minister has not succeeded in doing a single constructive thing to make an improvement to the daily quality of life of those obliged to travel to and from Dublin city.

At one time the city area was measured on the basis that the suburbs lay at least one hour's travel time from the city centre. If that measure of travel time was applied today, Saint Stephen's Green would be considered the city limits. If something radical does not take place soon the Department of Foreign Affairs will seem like it is in outer Mongolia, such is the very desperate state of traffic congestion. We need radical commuter-focused action spearheaded with money to back up the policy. Otherwise the far distant solution of Luas will be a pitiful consolation for those who currently spend long periods commuting relatively short distances. Fine Gael has a bill hoarding that asks, "Where do you spend your free time?" I want to tell the Government that Joe the commuter spends so much of his free time in his car that that is where he will decide for whom he will vote.

Bus services that are inefficient to meet the travel needs of the public are of no great value in addressing the crisis that exists. A far greater level of investment and competition is required in the market to require car users to become bus users. In the suburbs of our cities and in large urban areas, the Government must ensure that residential developments are serviced by small local bus networks, thus providing a system that will divert workers away from reliance on cars and towards the main bus services or upgraded rail services. The delivery of Luas and Metro will be of little value unless access to railway stations is made easy and practical.

Until solutions to infrastructure are devised, the Government must investigate all possible means of getting more multi-passenger vehicles into the network. There should be incentives available to employers to examine how they might contribute to the reduction of traffic congestion. I spoke here previously on the introduction of targeted alternate start and finish times in different parts of the city in order to give a better spread of demand. It is also possible to designate the traffic flow to take account of rush hour demand. Main route lines should be established similar to the bus lanes that could be used to meet the rush hour demand travelling into the city in the mornings and reversed in the evenings.

Mr. R. Bruton:

It is regrettable that there is so little time at this stage. I say to the Deputies opposite that it would be hard to conceive of more inept handling of the Dublin traffic problem than we have seen in the past five years. Despite eight different blueprints for what they were going to do about Dublin's traffic we still do not have Luas, nor do we have any competition on the buses, integrated ticketing, or park and ride facilities. We do not have any real time information or co-ordinated responsibility for traffic management and we do not have any increase in the number of passengers using buses.

Deputies opposite told us how they intended spending money, like it was going out of fashion, on solving the traffic problem. Five years on no more people are using buses, although we have given them bus lanes and priority. The Government said it would do the devil and all with new buses but we have less passengers using buses. That is total mismanagement in my view. There has been no leadership and each of these issues has been ducked.

Let us address the issue of integrated ticketing. A group was set up in the Department to investigate it and yet no initiative was taken following the production of its report. Another group was set up, this time in the light rail authority office, to do the very same thing, yet we are no nearer to a resolution.

Everyone accepted that a regulator should be appointed to bring competition to the bus network. The Minister said she would have legislation ready in July 2001 but she decided then to consult the unions in the bus companies as to whether we should have a regulator to open up competition. To date nothing has happened, consultation is still going on and studies are being done. We were to have a Dublin transport authority and the Minister passed that hot potato from her office to the Minister for the Environment and Local Government. Now we are told we will not have a Dublin transport authority; that we have to wait until there is a land use authority. I do not believe we are ever going to get the four local authorities who deal with land use to concede powers to some new unelected quango to deal with Dublin land-use planning. If we want to move on Dublin transport we have to do something about these realities.

As Deputy Sargent's colleague said, there is no legislation to deal with digging up the roads and the street. We have an underfunded system and it is quite clear that we are going backwards as far as getting people to switch from their car to public transport is concerned. While public transport has stagnated, the rate of car ownership has increased by 40% in four years. These are the realities and people are voting with their feet against the strategy and nothing has been done to persuade them to the contrary. Instead of taking decisions on these issues the Government is building pipedreams in the sky. It promises the Metro in 2025. This is what people have to ponder—

Mr. Kenny:

Fantasy land.

Mr. R. Bruton:

It is a fantasy land as Deputy Kenny says. The Government would have us believe that these problems are caused by success. These problems are caused by political ineptitude and that is why I gladly support Deputy Mitchell's amendment.

Ms Fitzgerald:

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue. The problem of traffic is escalating in Dublin at such a rate that it appears to be spiralling out of control. People living and working in the city have experienced a dramatic change in their quality of life over the past number of years. People are forced to accept sitting in traffic for endless hours as an inevitable part of their daily lives. Rather than spending time with their children or partners, individuals are compelled to waste valuable hours looking at the rear of the car in front of them. Instead of being able to unwind after a stressful day at work they must endure the tension and frustration of crawling home in traffic jams.

As Deputy Bruton said, instead of seeing improvements in the public transport system in recent times, as we would expect with this booming economy, we have seen a lack of leadership and a lack of decision making. It is extraordinary that the bus service in Dublin has been reduced by ten routes, instead of increasing routes and giving people more choice, the opportunity to travel in different directions and the kind of public transport service they need. This seriously inconveniences people and makes it very difficult for them to go about their daily lives using the public transport system. Every day, each of us in our constituencies hears stories of the routes that have been taken away and the impact that is having, particularly on the elderly.

The Government prides itself on the amount of money that has been available for public spending over the past five years, so how can it justify this measure in regard to Dublin buses? It shows a disregard for improving the quality of life for the people of Dublin. As Deputy Bruton said, the Government has failed to introduce competition in this area. Dublin Bus continues to play a pivotal role in the delivery of public transport in the capital but the need to introduce competition cannot be over-stressed. Such practice is the norm in most other EU countries where transport systems are streets ahead of those here. By failing to honour its promise of three years ago, the Government has allowed the bus service to fall into even further disarray and has squandered the best opportunity we have ever had to tackle this problem.

There has been an absolute failure to introduce legislation to manage utilities in the city of Dublin. Why has the Government not introduced legislation to enable competent management and control over what is happening on the streets? Such legislation is long promised. Its introduction would do something to streamline the management of utilities in the interests of the people in the city and people who are suffering the effects of this day in and day out on the streets outside their homes. Every second day or every second week, roads are dug up following which they are not properly repaired. This happens again and again. The DART service is outdated and in need of upgrading. Dublin Chamber of Commerce has recently put together a report on the matter. What are the plans to do something about this? All we have seen in this area is incompetence and people are screaming out for action. They want to be listened to. We had the resources to provide a proper public transport system over the past five years, but the Government has failed and the result has been a deterioration in the quality of life of people living in Dublin.

Mr. S. Ryan:

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this Fine Gael motion. I have raised the issue of the short-comings of the public transport system more than any other since I entered the Dáil. Speaking in this House three years ago, I referred to the fact that Fingal rail commuters were squeezed together in carriages like sardines in a tin at peak periods and that even the toilets on trains provided standing room only. I described that train service as "the sardine express". Nothing has changed in real terms for the struggling commuter, in fact, things have got infinitely worse. The recent experience at Donabate railway station witnessed by my party's leader, Deputy Quinn, and me highlighted once again the crisis in the rail network in north County Dublin serving Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush, Lusk, Donabate, Malahide and Portmarnock.

On the morning of Monday, 21 January last, between 7.45 a.m. and 8.45 a.m. Donabate station was nothing short of a nightmare as hundreds of commuters were left stranded when one of the trains serving it did not stop as it was already full. The other trains serving the station provided standing room only by the time they reached Donabate and commuters had to squeeze on to already overcrowded trains. The peak time rail service for workers, students and other commuters in North Dublin is in crisis and deep concerns have been expressed about health and safety. On the platform that morning a young woman in the early stages of pregnancy showed us her small portable chair, purchased the previous weekend, and carried by her on all occasions on the trains. In the previous fortnight she had fainted twice on the train, while standing up. The Minister will agree that is a terrifying experience. The inadequacy of our public transport in conjunction with the gridlock on our roads is having a detrimental effect on the quality of life of our citizens.

This does not even begin to reflect the implications of the Government's strategic planning guidelines for housing in the greater Dublin area which are being promoted by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government. I am convinced we will end up with a social and planning disaster unless this Government treats as a priority the necessary improvements to our bus, rail and road networks. With less than 90 days to the election, that is too much to expect. Perhaps it would be better for the people if the Government left the problem for a new administration to deal with. This Government and its agencies have targeted major growth areas such as Balbriggan, Lusk, Donabate, Portmarnock and Baldoyle on the northern side of Dublin on the basis that rail or DART infrastructure is in place. Builders and estate agents are selling houses on the same basis. This deliberately misleads the public. We have been informed time and time again that Iarnród Éireann will receive additional rail carriages in 2003 and that this will mean eight-carriage trains will be available by the end of that year, creating greater capacity. If these improvements would address the problems, commuters might have been willing to accept current circumstances. However, that is not the case. The core problems relating to increased capacity are infrastructural deficits between Connolly and Pearse Stations. In its document "Platform for Change", Iarnród Éireann has proposed to address the issue by means of a DASH project. That programme, if completed, would double the capacity on the rail and DART network in the Dublin region. If ever a Government transport investment programme demanded priority, this is it. Notwithstanding the Government's hype about the so-called investment in public transport announced in this year's budget, the fact remains that the DASH project is being under-funded. The investment provided covers only half of the estimated cost of the project over the next three years.

This Government has put rail and DART investment on the long finger and it is the long-suffering public of my constituency and others throughout the country who will have to pay the penalty. Over the past five years this Government has had available to it more money to deal with the problems of public transport than has any other in the history of the State. It has failed miserably and the public will show its contempt for that lack of action.

Mr. Kenny:

If one views the world through the ornament on the bonnet of a chauffeur-driven Mercedes, one tends to become immune to the realities of life. Dublin is now like Seoul in terms of traffic chaos and this is causing severe disruption and will cause economic losses. People will not invest if they cannot move quickly around the city to conduct business. The Minister for Public Enterprise, Deputy O'Rourke, and the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey, stand indicted for their abject failure to have a clear agenda as to how to solve this problem. They stand condemned before the electorate in the dying days of this Administration for that. No spatial plan or decentralisation plan has been published. These matters have been abandoned by the Government. The Government has not planned to move people from the city to the country because of fear of what the electorate might say.

The National Roads Authority should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act, 1997. I have written serious letters to the authority four times in the past 12 months and have not even had the courtesy of a reply. We have been blinded by figures of hundreds of millions to be spent and I hold responsible in part the planning process which grossly under estimated future traffic requirements ten years ago. Why do we have to have traffic lights on roundabouts? Coming to a roundabout on the M50, one encounters a traffic light which backs up traffic for two miles. Surely, there should be fly-overs and under-passes instead. The N5 between Strokestown and Ballaghaderreen is a glorified cart track. We are expected to put up with that on one of the main commercial arteries into Connacht, along which moves €4 billion worth of goods every year, while the NRA tells us nothing will be done about it until 2015.

How many elections will there have been and how many Ministers will have passed through the Department of the Environment and Local Government by then? There should be a massive investment in the rail system. People want an alternative to travel by road. I see people asleep in their cars at traffic lights. They are unable to stay awake. I see the pressure in their faces from the frustration of spending hours every week in their cars. It is having an appalling effect on families. For some people the time spend sitting in cars over a period of years, would amount to six months and the stress it causes probably shortens a person's life very considerably.

The Government has not had a clear agenda here. The Minister, Deputy Dempsey, has been an abject failure in driving his Department to find a solution to this problem. We all know about the increase in the number of trucks on our roads, but the situation has gone from bad to worse. Like the Government, the traffic has ground to a halt. It might be as well if the Government left before it is sent off.

Mr. Sargent:

The Government transport office has a radical plan to save Dublin from gridlock which was approved by the Government last year and I thank Fine Gael for tabling this motion to remind the Government of the salient points. The plan required £4 billion to be spent on public transport over the next five years: £1.5 billion on the DART and the other suburban rail lines, £1 billion on a metro system, £1 billion on Luas and £500 million on bus systems. However, as the budget has diminished, the Department of Finance is now scandalously putting a stop on these projects.

The national development plan includes 750 kilometres of new motorway as against just 25 kilometres of new rail track. This is a straight matter of economics which the Government has got badly wrong because the National Roads Authority now estimates that the real cost of its work on the roads will nearly double to £8.5 billion. In terms of value for money, the cost of resolving the huge gridlock problems will be set aside and not dealt with, and at the same time the NRA will grab every last cent it can of the moneys this Government seems prepared to allow for transport infrastructure.

The basic message is that if the money is no longer as plentiful, we in the Green Party demand that the Government prioritise public transport improvements as this is where there has been under investment down the years.

I do not just witness the chaotic overcrowding on our trains, I experience it each day I come here. I travel from north County Dublin on a line which has been unchanged since 1844. Meanwhile the road through that area has in many places been by-passed in that time. They have built by-passes of by-passes.

There is a need for investment in either double-deck trains or, better still, additional track space to allow more rolling stock. There is also a need for park and ride facilities at train stations and at main towns such as the growing metropolis of Swords. We must provide work facilities and school facilities and all those necessary services close to where people live to spare them the pain of the train and the fuss of the bus which at present subjects people to unhealthy overcrowding and delays them in keeping appointments.

The Government needs to provide local development plans if it is serious about tackling the transportation problems. They make sense for local economies in terms of personal sanity and health. After all, the more people are able to walk or cycle about their business, the healthier they will be, the less stressed they will be and the better it will be for all of us.

Although these are strong words, ultimately what we have is a system of transportation apartheid. The National Roads Authority acts like the white people did in South Africa. They are the ones with the power and the lion's share of the money. Everybody else must take his turn and wait until the National Roads Authority is happy because that is the way the rules have been set out by the Government. What we need is an end to that apartheid and a transportation authority which will give due balance to all the good investment needed. Currently most of that investment is needed in public transport.

Minister for Defence (Mr. M. Smith):

The unprecedented level of economic growth which Ireland experienced in recent years has led directly to large increases in population, in the number of households, in the numbers at work and in car ownership levels. Forecasts and projections for economic and employment growth have been exceeded year on year. The benefits of this growth and success are clear in terms of jobs and living standards. Given this growth, it is not sur prising that capacity constraints have emerged in the transport sector.

This Government has responded to these capacity constraints. The Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, outlined last night what has been done and what is in the pipeline, but the message bears repeating. The Government has, since it took office, prioritised the upgrading of our transport infrastructure and services in Dublin and throughout the country. It has vigorously pursued this objective through massively increased investment in the roads network and public transport. It is committed over the NDP period to maintaining transport investment programmes at a high level. The NDP provides for a total investment of more than €12 billion in transport. Good progress has been made in the roll-out of the NDP transport investment programme with total investment amounting to approximately €4 billion in the 2000-2002 period. The impact of this investment is evident around the country and has already been outlined in some detail by the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy.

Improving our transport system, however, is not just about investing in more infrastructure. The Government has also undertaken, as part of an integrated approach, a range of other initiatives to complement the major investment in transport infrastructure. These include: proposals for strengthening institutional arrangements for land use and transport planning in the greater Dublin area; initiatives in relation to the regulatory and structural reform of public transport; support for the development and implementation by local authorities of better traffic management policies and practice, particularly in the Dublin area through the DTO and support for the promotion of the greater use of public transport through, for example, bus priority measures.

Deputy Olivia Mitchell referred in the debate last night to the need for the introduction of bus competition, particularly in Dublin, and Deputy Richard Bruton also raised this issue. The Government has given a great deal of attention to regulatory and structural reform of public transport. We have published two important consultation papers on these issues. The first was published in September 2000 and set out proposals for the restructuring of CIE and the liberalisation of the bus market in the greater Dublin area. Flowing from that reform programme, we have seen the establishment last month of the Railway Procurement Agency and the publication in December of the Railway Safety Bill, which provides for the establishment of an independent Railway Safety Commission. A technical study is currently under way on the restructuring of CIE. We are also engaged in consultations with the social partners through the Public Transport Partnership Forum. The forum commissioned independent research to assist in formulating a response to the Government proposals.

Consultants will finish work before Easter on a review of the regulation of the bus market outside Dublin. I expect the Government will in due course publish its report and invite a public response to its proposals for regulatory reform.

The report of the three wise men on structural reform of Iarnród Éireann was published last July. It presented a challenging agenda for Irish Rail's management and unions and for the Government. All three partners accept this report as the basis for reform from within and are working to progress its implementation as speedily as possible.

The Government also recognises that there is a role for private participation in the delivery of improved public transport. We see public private partnerships playing an important part in the development of infrastructure and services. The Transport (Railway Infrastructure) Act provides a modern, flexible and effective legislative basis for rail PPPs. The Railway Procurement Agency has been established as a dedicated agency to procure rail PPPs. A detailed policy framework document for PPPs in the rail sector has also been prepared.

More broadly, it is also important to bear in mind that meeting the transport needs of Dublin and other urban centres requires a shared responsibility and commitment to actions by all the key players including business organisations, transport authorities, councillors and individuals as well as Government. Solving our transport problems, particularly in urban areas, depends not just on actions by public authorities but on communities, business and individuals making sustainable travel choices. For example, traffic congestion in the large urban areas can be reduced by the greater use of public transport. With the major investment now taking place in public transport, the advent of quality bus corridors and the better taxi service now available, public transport is an increasingly attractive alternative to the private car.

I refer to the taxis and hardship matter which was raised by Deputy Michael D. Higgins last night. The Government has decided to approve the appointment of a panel of three independent persons to report on the nature and extent of extreme personal financial hardship which may have been experienced by individual taxi licence holders as a direct result of the liberalisation of entry to the taxi industry in November 2000. Persons who held a taxi licence at 21 November 2000 and consider they have suffered extreme personal financial hardship arising from taxi liberalisation are invited to make submissions to the panel. It will be a matter for those making submissions to indicate how they can substantiate their claim of hardship. A two month period for submissions is being allowed following which the panel will report on the nature and extent of hardship. The Minister of State with responsibility for housing and urban renewal will then report back to Government on its findings.

Road works are often blamed for the disruption of traffic flow on our streets and roads to which Deputy John Bruton and others referred. The issue is being addressed by the Government. Powers to control road works by utilities are available under existing legislation, particularly the Road Traffic Act, 1961, and are being used by urban road authorities to regulate the opening of roads by utilities. The Communications Regulations Bill, currently with the Department of Public Enterprise, proposes to modernise legislation on road openings by telecommunications operators. It aims to ensure the regulatory framework which will apply to such operators will afford appropriate and updated powers to roads authorities and regulate road openings in the public interest.

The Minister for the Environment and Local Government is also considering a wider legislative updating to deal with this important issue. A utility and statutory body working group, chaired by the DTO, has been established with the aim of standardising the approach to road works through agreed codes of practice. It comprises representatives from various bodies and agencies currently involved in telecommunications network roll-out, including the ODTR, DTO, the Departments of Public Enterprise and the Environment and Local Government, urban and rural local authorities, IBEC and Eircom. It is clear that efforts are being made to address the issue.

A number of Deputies referred to the need for park and ride facilities. As is clear from the DTI update strategy, it is proposed that such facilities will integrate the car with public transport. There will be park and ride facilities for commuters at strategic locations where the national road network meets the public transport networks. However, it will be essential to assess all proposed park and ride sites to ensure cars accessing them do not add to congestion. Over 2,000 additional park and ride spaces have already been provided at suburban rail stations under the DTI strategy.

Park and ride tax incentives are provided for in the Finance Acts of 1999 and 2001. A person wishing to avail of the capital allowances and reliefs available must make a formal application in writing to the relevant local authority. If the local authority is satisfied that the park and ride facility and associated development, where relevant, conforms with the guidelines and legislation, it may issue a certificate which will enable the developer to avail of the tax incentives. Deputies will be interested to note that the Finance Bill, 2002, provides for an extension of tax incentives until 2004.

Since 1997 significant progress has been made on the alleviation of traffic congestion in Dublin. Over 400 new buses have been purchased under the NDP. The quality bus corridor – QBC – network was substantially extended in 2001 with five new routes serving Blanchardstown, Swords, Tallaght, north Clondalkin and Rathfarnham initiated. The Malahide Road QBC was also extended. Nine QBCs are now in place and work is continuing on further routes. Dedicated cycle-ways are now a familiar sight on Dublin streets and taxi numbers have increased significantly. Improvements have also been made to rail services, including platform lengthening, provision of additional DART and rail cars, extension of the DART to Greystones and Malahide and the completion of the Maynooth-Clonsilla rail line. Work is also continuing on the Luas and on 16 January the Government gave the go-ahead for a procurement process for a metro in Dublin. It is clear that significant progress is being made.

A number of Deputies referred to public-private partnerships – PPPs – which will play an important role in the acceleration and delivery of road infrastructure by harnessing the skills and finance necessary to bring economies and innovation to Irish road design. They will help to build roads on time and to a high standard without eroding necessary Government investment in other essential services. The national roads investment programme, outlined in the NDP, provides for €1.27 billion of private finance through PPPs, which represents 23% of total road investment. This will make possible the most ambitious road programme in the history of the State. The NRA is progressing a number of high quality schemes which are suitable as PPPs. Significant progress has been achieved in the roads PPP programme during 2001. Construction commenced on the second West Link bridge on the M50 in August 2001. Preferred bidders are due to be selected for the M25 Waterford bypass and the M4 Kilcock-Kinnegad motorway this year.

The Government is committed to sustained and co-ordinated action to upgrade our transport infrastructure and services, not just in Dublin and other urban centres, but throughout the country. The task is not easy and will take time, but we have a clear vision of what needs to be done and put in place the policies and funding to achieve it.

Mr. Higgins

(Mayo): I wish to share time with Deputies Donal Carey, Caoimghín Ó Caoláin and Olivia Mitchell. The Government will be five years in office when the general election takes place. What a legacy it has left, what an abysmal record it has had and what a failure it has been. The Minister has set out a range of aspirations, plans and position papers and spelled out the many million euro they will cost. If he was on the Sligo train this week, he would have had no heating and sat in darkness for over four hours. This is the era of the Celtic tiger; our so-called First World economy. We have the most tatty, decrepit and run-down rail system in western Europe. It is not simply the case of the Sligo train, matters are exactly the same on the Westport train which I use when possible. I would love to use it more, but one simply cannot rely on it. I invite the Minister to view, at first hand, Heuston Station on a Thursday or Friday evening. It is something to behold. Passengers have to queue and when the white flag is raised and the whistle blown, there is a stampede. The reason is there is never enough space on the train. Passengers stand in the aisles, between the carriages and on top of each other. In many cases they are elderly, returning from surgery or hip replacement operations in Dublin. There is no trolley service whatsoever. It is small wonder that matters are as they are. We have a rail system that is driven by locomotives from the 1970s and carriages from the 1960s.

When the Government assumed office it inherited a ready to roll Luas system. Designs were in place, most of the planning had been completed and EU funding secured. At exactly the same time, the French city of Montpellier had the same system at the same stage. It has now been running for two years. All we have had are potholes, crevices, traffic jams, a charade in Merrion Square, lots of front page advertising in the national newspapers and now we are told we are to have an experimental 300 yard track at the Red Cow roundabout.

The Minister mentioned integrated ticketing, which does not take a lot of planning as it is an administrative issue. Integrating tickets would allow one to travel by bus and rail with one ticket. The parent company is CIE, the subsidiary companies are Bus Átha Cliath and Iarnród Éireann, yet it has not been possible to produce a simple ticket that would allow one to transfer from one system to another. The Minister talked about the often promised park and ride facilities and of the danger of causing congestion where cars would converge at particular locations. After five years in office, a simple co-ordinated scheme, integrating the car with the bus and rail systems, has not been introduced. I welcome the QBCs, but they have been a limited success and far too few.

We have the most chaotic capital city in Europe, a city choking to death. It is a nightmare, a place where, as Deputy Kenny said, people have to spend up to four hours per day looking at the back window of the car in front of them. It is the most unsociable city in the world from the perspective of work and family life.

I am delighted Deputy Olivia Mitchell has tabled this motion. She has single-handedly pioneered and championed this issue. I have no doubt that she will make a superb Minister for Public Enterprise in the coming months.

Mr. D. Carey:

I join my colleagues in appealing to the Taoiseach and his Ministers to speak strongly to the Minister for the Environment and Local Government who has made a complete mess of his portfolio. The speakers to the motion have illustrated this clearly.

The Minister present spoke about capacity constraints and the Government's response. That is the core of the issue. For example, we have a severe traffic problem in Clare. I live in Clarecastle which has been decimated by traffic. We are concerned about our future. Despite this, the Minister and the National Roads Authority have postponed the Ennis bypass. All the preparations have been done by Clare County Council, includ ing arrangements for compulsory purchase and completion of notices to treat and entry. The only delay was the IFA dispute, which has been settled. There is no reason compulsory purchase of the land could not proceed this year. Instead, the NRA has instructed the council to postpone the matter. A recent delegation from the council to the NRA was told that the board of the authority cannot make a decision because it only has eight members whereas it should by statute have 14 members. The delegation was also told that the new members, when appointed, would have to read into the briefs before a decision could be made. That is hardly efficiency and it will not impress the Americans trying to establish an industry in my constituency or the businesses located in the industrial estate in Shannon who find their employees are continually delayed by traffic jams in Clarecastle, Newmarket-on-Fergus and Shannon.

The Minister, Deputy Smith, is well aware of the problems of the mid-west. He referred in his speech to public private partnerships and the effect they will have. There is a campaign in his constituency against toll roads and PPPs. Will we in Clare be left with toll roads and PPPs while people in Dublin and the east enjoy the best of new roads? If such a difficulty existed in County Meath, I have no doubt the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, would not be long in eradicating it. I appeal to the Minister, Deputy Smith, to point out to the Minister for the Environment and Local Government that he has the power to tell the NRA to proceed with the Ennis bypass, as indicated to Clare County Council, which it is estimated will cost €115 million. I do not understand what is delaying this development.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin:

I thank Deputy Jim Higgins and his colleagues for sharing their time. The transport and traffic gridlock in Dublin, on the national roads and in main towns is one of the most obvious and visible signs of the Government's failure to take the bold and definitive decisions needed to address serious social and economic problems. As in the areas of health and housing, the Government has squandered the golden opportunities offered by economic prosperity to reform, renew and resource the transport system properly. We do not have an integrated transport system. We have a complex of competing elements which amount to chaos.

In the region I represent, public transport, apart from expressway services through the towns of Cavan and Monaghan and the clapped-out school bus service, is non-existent. In comparison, Dublin has a myriad of public transport services, but in this city the Government has also failed abjectly to provide the public transport essential to ending the dependence on private cars which causes gridlock.

I deplore the continuing failure of the Government and the National Roads Authority, despite all the talk of peace dividends and cross-Border co-operation, to prioritise the N2 national route between Dublin and Derry. Bypasses at Carrickmacross, Castleblayney and Monaghan are behind schedule and traffic is still being forced through the death trap that is Slane village with no indicators of a prospect of a bypass in the short to medium term. This is a disgrace. I support the motion.

Ms O. Mitchell:

As this will probably be the last Private Members' debate on traffic in this Dáil, it is with sadness that I look back on the five years of economic expansion and growth, when people worked hard and had expectations, and see how little was delivered by the Government. It is not just that but also that the transport deficit has grown by so much in that time. Now, when the cupboard is bare, there is much more to be done and it will be much more costly and disruptive. It will also be imposed on a city that is almost at gridlock.

The self-congratulatory tone of the Government amendment to the motion makes one wonder if the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, who spoke last night, or any member of the Government lives in the same world as the rest of us. Do they travel the same streets we do, suffer the same levels of stress and breathe the same toxic fumes? Have their commuting times doubled, as they have for the rest of us? Do they suffer the same frustrating, nail-biting and hair-pulling tension every time they must make even the smallest journey, even within their local areas? Are they all too long in Government and living in such a rarefied atmosphere of power at a remove from the public that they can no longer empathise with the everyday concerns of the people they purport to represent?

If they can, and I am sure there must be some Members on the Government side who empathise with ordinary men who must get to work every morning and ordinary women who must bring their children to crèches and then go to work, do they recognise that they are the only people who can do anything about the real misery suffered by every inhabitant of the greater Dublin region? How can any Minister congratulate himself and the Government if he has any idea of the reality of congestion with which people in this city must live every day?

If the Minister present read the newspaper this morning, he would have seen that RTE is to broadcast the "Morning Ireland" radio programme at an earlier time to reflect the fact that the majority of the population is on the streets, either in cars or waiting at bus stops, listening to their radios a half hour earlier than they were last year or the year before. Many of them will have already brought their children to crèches or child minders before they begin their own frustrating and tedious journey to work. People's mornings are getting earlier and their evenings are getting later. They now have a 12 hour working day. This has happened in the past five years and is a poor quality of life. There is no such thing as arriving home at 5.30 p.m. to put the children to bed. It is a case of waking them up when one arrives home at 8 p.m. That is certainly the case for my constituents.

The Government has never taken the traffic problem in Dublin seriously and, consequently, never had any sense of urgency about it. When I tabled the first Private Members' motion on this subject four and a half years ago and tried to communicate the disaster looming then which was obvious to anyone who looked around and saw what was happening, I was dismissed by Government backbenchers and told I was exaggerating and scaremongering. We have lost competitiveness and jobs due to congestion, and we have certainly lost quality of life, free time and faith in the Government to do anything about it.

I spoke last night about rail developments, buses and everything else the Government promised and did not deliver. Its record is a litany of promises on which it has failed to deliver. Quality bus corridors are an example. They are wonderful and I support them but where is the capacity increase and frequency of buses needed? It does not exist. To feed the few QBCs which work, Dublin Bus has had to take buses from other routes. Some routes have been closed and there are now ten less routes in operation than there were five years ago, despite the huge expansion in population.

I could go on, but I have rehearsed all these problems so often that I realise the Government has no intention of giving us anything but more promises. It has wasted the last five golden years of opportunity and will not get such an opportunity again. It is time for it to get out of office and let someone else deliver.

Amendment put.

Tá

Ahern, Dermot.Ahern, Michael.Ahern, Noel.Aylward, Liam.Blaney, Harry.Brady, Johnny.Brady, Martin.Brennan, Séamus.Briscoe, Ben.Browne, John (Wexford).Byrne, Hugh.

Callely, Ivor.Carey, Pat.Collins, Michael.Cooper-Flynn, Beverley.Coughlan, Mary.Cowen, Brian.Cullen, Martin.Daly, Brendan.Davern, Noel.de Valera, Síle. Dennehy, John.

Tá–continued

Doherty, Seán.Ellis, John.Fahey, Frank.Flood, Chris.Foley, Denis.Fox, Mildred.Gildea, Thomas.Hanafin, Mary.Harney, Mary.Healy-Rae, Jackie.Jacob, Joe.Keaveney, Cecilia.Kelleher, Billy.Kenneally, Brendan.Killeen, Tony.Kirk, Séamus.Kitt, Michael P.Lenihan, Brian.Lenihan, Conor.McGennis, Marian.McGuinness, John J.Martin, Micheál

Moffatt, Thomas.Molloy, Robert.Moloney, John.Moynihan, Donal.Moynihan, Michael.Ó Cuív, Éamon.O'Dea, Willie.O'Donnell, Liz.O'Flynn, Noel.O'Hanlon, Rory.O'Keeffe, Ned.O'Kennedy, Michael.O'Malley, Desmond.Power, Seán.Roche, Dick.Ryan, Eoin.Smith, Michael.Treacy, Noel.Wade, Eddie.Wallace, Mary.Walsh, Joe.Wright, G. V.

Níl

Barrett, Seán.Bell, Michael.Belton, Louis J.Bradford, Paul.Broughan, Thomas P.Bruton, Richard.Burke, Ulick.Carey, Donal.Connaughton, Paul.Cosgrave, Michael.Coveney, Simon.Crawford, Seymour.Currie, Austin.D'Arcy, Michael.De Rossa, Proinsias.Deasy, Austin.Deenihan, Jimmy.Dukes, Alan.Durkan, Bernard.Finucane, Michael.Fitzgerald, Frances.Flanagan, Charles.Gilmore, Éamon.Gormley, John.Hayes, Tom.Healy, Seamus.Higgins, Jim.Higgins, Michael.Howlin, Brendan.

Kenny, Enda.McCormack, Pádraic.McDowell, Derek.McGahon, Brendan.McGinley, Dinny.McGrath, Paul.Mitchell, Olivia.Moynihan-Cronin, Breeda.Naughten, Denis.Neville, Dan.Noonan, Michael.Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.O'Keeffe, Jim.O'Shea, Brian.O'Sullivan, Jan.Penrose, William.Perry, John.Rabbitte, Pat.Reynolds, Gerard.Ryan, Seán.Sargent, Trevor.Shatter, Alan.Sheehan, Patrick.Shortall, Róisín.Stagg, Emmet.Stanton, David.Timmins, Billy.Upton, Mary.Wall, Jack.

Tellers: Tá, Deputies S. Brennan and Power; Níl, Deputies Bradford and Stagg.

Amendment declared carried.

Question, "That the motion, as amended, be agreed to" put and declared carried.