Apart from the divisions in Cabinet on Luas - the PDs and a couple of others want the capital's new public transport system to go underground in the city centre as opposed to being entirely on street - other matters are delaying the final decision, now due on Tuesday.
As well as money - underground is more expensive but the disruption is greatly less - the date of the next election is a consideration. If construction starts in the autumn, the mayhem could be at its height in about 2001, which is just when the Government expects to be going to the country. However, elections are not won or lost in the country but in Dublin - and massive traffic hold-ups and noise and bother could upset thousands of voters.
Meanwhile, the "on ground" lobbyists, who are delighted with the £200,000 Atkins report, are spreading the following cautionary tale. Engineering consultants, W. S. Atkins, had a bit of a problem themselves with a tunnelling accident on the £181 million extension to the Docklands Light Railway in London, in which their tunnelling subsidiary is directly involved. A blast of compressed air created a huge crater in a school playing field, hurling "a shower of stones and mud into the air" and breaking windows up to 100 metres away. "It was very fortunate that no one was killed," a source in Britain's Health and Safety Executive said.
The cause of the "blow-out" is still not known, but supporters of the on-street Luas system say it just goes to show that, in tunnelling, Murphy's Law will always come into play. Meanwhile, those who favour a divided scheme, underground in the city centre and on ground elsewhere, have not given up and the release of the hefty report this week backs many of their arguments.