I was waiting for some contributions from that side of the House. There seems to be a silence on this Bill from the Fianna Fáil side which reminds me of the brevity of the Minister—not the Minister of State who is here today—when introducing this Bill some considerable time ago in the other House. That opening speech has been noted by a number of contributors. It must stand as one of the briefest and least illuminating speeches made by a Minister in either House for a considerable number of years. As Senator McDonald was hinting, we are still not very much the wiser. The only specific proposal I can see that this Bill is intended to cover is a matter which has come before another forum in which I participate, that is, Dublin City Council.
Contrary to the proper and democratic order of things, Dublin City Council, as the road authority in Dublin, have been considering the specific proposal of Mr. Roche for a toll bridge which would link the East Wall and Ringsend. The proposal was adopted in principle by Dublin City Council at their meeting on the first Monday of this month. There was a reference from the General Purposes Committee to the city council in relation to this toll bridge and approach road to connect Ringsend with North Wall Quay and, after a vote, this was adopted in principle. I objected to this not least on the grounds that the Bill which would give a statutory basis for Dublin City Council as the road authority to enter into any kind of negotiations had not even had its Second Reading in this House.
I am wondering what the real background is to this Bill. Is there anything else except Mr. Roche's proposal for a toll bridge and approach road in Dublin? Has Mr. Roche been impatient with the Government who may or may not have entered into an agreement to bring in legislation to facilitate his proposal to operate a toll bridge and to make a profit out of operating it? It seems to me that there is nothing else behind this measure, that that is the beginning and the end of it, and that the Government have not been efficient enough for Mr. Roche, so that he had to go before the city council when that body did not have statutory power to enter into any negotiations to get their agreement in principle before there was legislation grounding it.
This is a reflection on the approach to the vital question of traffic in various cities and towns and specifically, for my purposes, traffic in Dublin city. Here we have an ad hoc piecemeal measure. The Minister of State in introducing it to this House described it as an enabling measure. Of course it is an enabling measure which enables the relevant road authority to enter into discussions with a private entrepreneur, if that entrepreneur wants to build a toll bridge, or an approach road in a particular area, and to charge a toll in order to make a profit out of the enterprise. That is what the Bill is about.
If we see it in an overall context of traffic chaos in Dublin of an urgent need for a Dublin traffic authority, an urgent need for major legislation in order to give an overall traffic authority in Dublin power to begin to cope with the real traffic problem, then we have some measure of the lack of overall concern and interest on the part of the Government. They do not seem to be on top of the job, with the effect that traffic is getting worse and worse. The snarl is getting worse and worse. The pollution by traffic is getting worse and worse and the city is grinding to a halt. If anybody doubts this I would refer him to the paragraph of the Fourth Report of the Joint Committee on State-Sponsored Bodies. The report was specifically on CIE, but it also dealt with what it called traffic restraint in Dublin. There are a number of paragraphs, beginning with paragraph 72 of that report, which identify the seriousness of the problem and the need for a major response to it. At paragraph 88 the Joint Committee states:
The Joint Committee believes that there is a need for a high-level coordinating authority and this should take, if necessary, the form of a new statutory authority. It should have powers to develop and execute a traffic management strategy for Dublin as a whole, and to ensure that the measures it proposes are enforced. It should cover Dublin as a whole and result in necessary changes in the relevant by-laws, and parking regulations and have powers to introduce bus priority schemes throughout the city. Such an authority would have considerable implications for CIE and for the Gardaí. The Joint Committee urges the necessity of a new authority for this purpose, and trusts that the local authority will also recognise this need.
It seems to me that this House is focussing on an ad hoc once-off measure, because a private entrepreneur has come forward with a proposal for a toll bridge in a particular area. When this was discussed in detail at various meetings of the General Purposes Committee of Dublin City Council and in the council chamber itself, on the first occasion it was sent back from the council chamber to the General Purposes Committee and on the first Monday of this month it was passed in principle on a majority vote by the city council.
The issues became clear. First of all, as far as Dublin is concerned, is a bridge needed at that particular part of Dublin? Is it necessary to have another bridge at that particular point to link Ringsend with North Wall Quay? If so, why are the local authority not prepared to ensure that the bridge is built, as the local authority up to now have assumed responsibility for the road system in Dublin?
A separate matter is this: if this bridge is necessary and is to be built, then why is the fundamental decision in principle being taken—and it is a fundamental decision in principle—to hand over the building of the bridge to private enterprise and to allow private enterprise to operate under by-laws prescribed specially for them by the local authority to operate a profit-making enterprise with no time limit on it, a profit-making enterprise indefinitely, so that not only those who seek to use it, but those who need to use that bridge several times a day, would have to pay the toll and therefore fill the coffers of the particular private enteprise company?
In the city council there were many references to the fact that this was becoming an ideological debate. There is a very important ideological issue here. It is the first time—and we should be aware of this—that part of our road system, our transportation system, is to be handed over, a piecemeal part, a profit-making part, to private enterprise. We should be aware of the implications of this for our whole transport system, and for our traffic and our flow of traffic. Does this mean that where some other private entrepreneur in some other city, or in some other part of Dublin, comes up with a good idea for making profit, we will have pressure on the road authority, the city council, to make the necessary by-laws to facilitate him? Are we to be at the beck and call of private enterprise to build certain bridges or certain toll roads in certain parts of the city? Have we a Government who will listen genuinely to the desperate appeals from residents of residential areas of Dublin? I can speak for the residents in the areas of Rathmines, Rathgar, Dartry, Orwell Road, who are oppressed by heavy and persistent traffic at all hours, heavy vehicle traffic through residential areas.
We all know that the travelling rate of CIE buses in Dublin is one of the slowest rates in any European city and we know that the flow of cars through the city every day does not make any kind of sense. Therefore, I would reject this Bill on several grounds. I reject the idea of private toll bridges for the profit of entrepreneurs. I reject the idea that, if a bridge is necessary, it will not be built by and under the control of the road authority, as has been the case always.
I also reject this piecemeal and unconnected approach to the whole transport and traffic problems in Dublin specifically and also in other cities and major towns around the country. It is strange if you look at the legislative order of priorities of this Government what seems to determine the priorities. It seems to me that Mr. Roche is able to determine Fianna Fáil priorities in relation to coping with traffic and transport problems in the city of Dublin. For those reasons I reject the idea of a Bill enabling road authorities to negotiate with private entrepreneurs in this way. I believe the Bill is specifically related to Mr. Roche's proposal. I do not believe there is any other specific proposal in mind at the moment. Obviously it will be open to another private entrepreneur to come forward and approach another road authority once this Bill is passed through both Houses. This is not the way to start approaching one of the most serious and urgent problems facing us.
Apart from what I have talked about—the economic undermining of our capital city by the fact that the transport system is not working properly, the fact that traffic is moving at such a slow pace in the city—there are also very serious environmental problems and very serious energy problems on which we are not getting any leadership from the Government in coping with them. This Bill does not spell out any leadership or any sense of the proper order of priorities in relation to traffic and transport. Therefore, it is a revealing measure. What was perhaps most revealing of all was the very minimal speech made by the Minister in the other House when introducing the Bill. That to me spoke volumes. The Bill can be understood if you go back and read that opening speech by the Minister. He did not want to say anything about it because of its whole motivation, because of the whole approach of this Government to coping with that major problem. This Bill should be rejected by the House.