MR Bertie Ahern has said he has "grave reservations" about the Luas light rail line causing traffic congestion in the centre of Dublin. He wondered particularly how an overground line would affect traffic in the St Stephen's Green, Dawson Street and Nassau Street area.
The Fianna Fail leader was speaking at a press conference in his party's St Stephen's Green electoral headquarters yesterday, when he introduced a policy programme on Dublin.
He repeated his earlier pledge that a Fianna Fail government would commission "an immediate and independent study of the option, of going underground in the city centre area.
He also promised that such a government would develop a rail link between Dublin Airport and the city centre "in the short term The first part of this line would use the abandoned line from Broad stone to Cabra.
He said Fianna Fail was committed to building all three Dublin light rail lines, to Sandyford, Tallaght and Ballymun, and would extend them where there was "obvious potential". A case was being made, for example, that the rail network could be extended to the developing docklands area.
He also promised to "table for early decision" a 1994 proposal by National Toll Roads Ltd for a second port access tunnel from Heuston Station.
Mr Ahern, noting that the ESRI had named traffic congestion as one of the threats to continued Irish economic growth, said: "The traffic arteries of Dublin are in danger of closure" while major transport projects are "gathering dust on the drawing board."
He said that 18 months ago a number of leading Dublin corporate law firms had come to Fianna Fail with proposals about how their business could grow on the back of the Financial Services Centre. He promised that an incoming government would "achieve for legal services what we have successfully achieved for financial services, bringing major international legal business to Ireland.
He also promised to establish a Dublin Millennium Commission to include business, civic and community leaders, which would take as its starting point the Dublin Chamber of Commerce document, 2010 - A Vision of Dublin.