I move:
That Seanad Éireann noting:
(a) the delay in constructing the Luas lines in Dublin, the significant cost overruns associated with that project and the severe disruption caused in much of central Dublin by the construction works;
(b) the fact that the provision of the QBC network is well behind time and that moneys allocated in 2002 for carrying out work on the network were not spent;
(c) the failure of the Government and the Railway Procurement Agency to set out a coherent plan for the provision of a metro service;
(d) the fact that the completion of the M50 is behind time and that the existing road has inadequate capacity;
(e) the failure of Government and Iarnród Éireann to carry out capacity enhancement works on the Maynooth mainline rail line and the DART, notwithstanding the fact that such improvements have been announced by Government on numerous occasions in recent years; and
therefore calls on the Government to set out and finance an integrated transport plan for Dublin and deplores its lamentable failure to do so heretofore.
Tá áthas orm an rún in ainm Seanadóirí Páirtí Lucht Oibre a mholadh. Public transport in Dublin is, to use a phrase with which the Minister of State will be familiar, a joke. It is a mess. Despite ten years of economic growth and unprecedented resources, our system is still woefully inadequate for our purposes and is by any reasonable standard worse than that available to the citizens of any other capital city in the EU. The circumstances enjoyed by Governments during that time, especially this Government and the one before it, could hardly have been better.
It is important to remember that this Government had available to it a virtual consensus about what needed to be done. Opinion formers and policy makers gave up making the case for a road based solution in Dublin many years ago. I was a member of Dublin City Council for 12 years until earlier this year and virtually every councillor of the 52 in that body had long since bought into the view that we could not solve the problems of transport in Dublin – getting people from A to B, particularly into the city centre and out again – by using roads. It could not be done. We were all agreed on this, sometimes to our political cost. I recall more than one meeting in my constituency at which views were loudly expressed by car users that QBCs were a waste of space and that we should be concentrating instead on widening the roads. All of us in our time have opposed those views and there has been a consensus available to Government.
There has also been available to Government an unprecedented level of resources. Double digit growth in the economy for most of the late 1990s made available resources which were simply never available to any of its predecessors. The fact that much of that money came from the German taxpayer is ironic because the average German is now rather less well-off than the average Irish person, albeit with much better public transport and other infrastructure available to him. There is no excuse for the utterly lamentable position in which the citizens of this city now find themselves. The average Dubliner, if he works in the city centre, will typically spend an hour or more in traffic every morning and another hour in the evening, with all the obvious consequences for his quality of life. It is not simply a matter of inconvenience; significant disadvantage to the economy of this city arises from the gridlock we experience on a daily basis. Surveys have shown that it takes longer in Dublin for goods to be transported from A to B, whether from the ports to the M50 or within the city, than in any other city of comparable size or population in Europe.
Where do we find ourselves now? Ten years after it was first announced, Luas is still behind time, well over budget and causing immeasurable disruption to businesses along the lines which nobody ever envisaged and which the businesses involved were never told about. The DART is still massively under-capacity. I am fortunate enough to live on the DART line, near Killester station. It is not unusual – in fact it is almost a daily experience – for people who arrive at the station between 8.15 a.m. and 9 a.m. not to succeed in getting onto the DART because it is full. We have known for many years that there was an under-capacity. Governments have made announcements about the lengthening of trains too many times to count. The intention to lengthen platforms to accommodate eight-car trains was first announced at least eight years ago, not by this Government or its predecessor, I suspect, but by the Government before that. Yet we are now being told that the DART will have to close at weekends for 18 months in one part of the city or another in order to carry out works which are obviously long since overdue.
Most of us support the implementation of the QBC network, but it too is massively behind time. We have demonstrated our utter incapacity to put in place the necessary planning to ensure that something that seems to be relatively simple happens. The results of the QBC network have been patchy but generally good and they certainly justify the extension of the network. Money was supplied by Government last year for this but was returned because the bodies concerned were incapable of putting together their plans in sufficient time to spend the money. The outturn is woefully inadequate in circumstances in which the work needs to be done quickly.
The metro is the crowning glory in this catalogue of disasters. It is now four years since the Leader of this House, then the Minister for Public Enterprise, announced that the Government had agreed in principle to build a metro system in Dublin on a public private partnership basis. Four years later, none of us has a notion of what Government policy actually is. Certainly, one would be hard pressed to find any Dubliners who believe that the metro system will be in place, for example, ten years from now. Government policy has simply lost any measure of credibility it once had.
It is worth considering in detail the example of the Luas. It a good example of how things have simply not happened. The Luas was first announced by Government in 1994 as part of the Structural Funds round of 1994-99. When the Fianna Fáil-PD Government came to power in 1997, one of the first things it did was to suspend the public inquiry that was then in place so that it could resolve a row between the Government partners, one party of which wanted to put the city centre section underground while the other did not. The consultants reported a year later – a year that was lost to the whole process – and their suggestions were ultimately disregarded by Government. The three lines initially planned soon became two and the city centre area was left in limbo. We still do not know whether it will actually be developed. Close to the end of the process we are left with a fraction of a network, which is not integrated as the lines do not meet and probably will never meet. It does not have the capacity to move anything like the number of people who live along the line and it cannot be converted, in a realistic way within a realistic timetable or at a realistic price, into a metro as proposed in the platform for change at the DTO. It is causing enormous disruption and is costing a fortune.
There is also the utter farce of the Red Cow roundabout where the Government is floundering around, throwing out weekly possible solutions and, clearly, does not have a clue how to deal with it. Three or four weeks ago we were told we could spend €1 billion upgrading the M50. Then we were told the Luas could be put on stilts and later still that the roundabout could be redesigned at a cost of €100 million and that part of the M50 could be upgraded at a cost of €300 million. I do not care what is done if it works. I represent the views of most people in Dublin when I say that. The bottom line is that ten years after we first talked about Luas we do not know what the solution to that problem will be. However, we know that whatever solution is found will almost certainly delay the project beyond its mid-next year end point so that there will be further delay and further diminishing of the service when it eventually becomes available.
I listened with great interest to the Minister for Transport, Deputy Brennan, in the Lower House yesterday. All of us accept that buses will form an important part of public transport in Dublin into the future but I do not have a notion of what is Government policy. In 1999-2000, the Government announced it would introduce a measure of flexibility, liberalisation and deregulation, but would put in place a regulator who would look after standards and ensure everybody got a service. In his contribution in the Lower House yesterday, the Minister did not seem to have a notion of his own policy. He actually used the phrase at one stage that "it was all terribly confusing". His announced policy is to franchise out 25% of the existing routes. We do not know whether he will make Dublin Bus buses available to a private user.
The Minister does not appear to know, but he has informed us that he is talking with the social partners to resolve the matter. If we are to wait for those talks to arrive at a solution, we could be waiting a long time. He does not appear to know whether he wants a regulator for Dublin, the greater Dublin area, regional regulators or whether he wants a regulator at all. This is characteristic of the incompetence, lack of direction and lack of planning we have seen in the Government's policy and approach to public transport in our capital city during the past four years.
I have pleasure proposing a motion which I acknowledge is largely negative. However, its negative thrust is more than adequately justified by the inaction of a Government which appears to have no feeling for what it is at, no notion of where it is going and, certainly, no respect for the citizens of the capital city.
