In a major departure from previous Government policy, the Minister for the Environment and Local Government has announced that planning should proceed on the £750 million Eastern Bypass motorway for the capital.
Detailed plans for the coastal motorway are to be prepared shortly following Mr Dempsey's decision to advise the National Roads Authority to proceed to the planning and design stage.
The announcement effectively reverses the decision of his predecessor, ail minister, Mr Michael Smith, who killed off the proposal in 1992 through a decision to exclude it from development plans for the city.
The bypass, which would cater for up to 50,000 cars a day, will not be completed for at least eight years, according to the NRA, which has welcomed the Government's announcement.
Under the latest plans proposed by the roads authority, the motorway will incorporate a tunnel section under Dublin Bay and a link to the M50 C-ring road at Sandyford through Goatstown.
Previous attempts to build the motorway have been met with objections from residents' groups and environmentalists concerned about the impact on the Booterstown marsh bird sanctuary.
Mr Dempsey said it was now a matter for the NRA, in conjunction with the relevant local authorities, to bring the proposal forward, including the preparation of a full environmental impact statement.
Already, opposition has come from the Green Party's Dublin South East TD, Mr John Gormley, who maintained that the decision underlined the Government's car-based transport vision.
An Taisce, meanwhile, said that the money to be spent on the bypass should be invested in public transport instead. Its chairman, Mr Michael Smith, said that adopting the plan without assessing its impact on the Sandymount strand special protection area for birds was a breach of the European Commission's Habitats Directive.
However, Fine Gael's environment spokesman, Mr Ivan Yates, described the reopening of the debate as a positive development. He said it was crucially important that resources provided for the scheme should be entirely separate from the revenues required to build a modern public transport system for the city of Dublin. "The real emphasis must be for high-quality and cheap-touse public transport", he added.
Mr Fintan Cassidy, from the Marino Development Action Group, which opposed the Dublin Port Tunnel, condemned the timing of the Government's announcement during a peak holiday period. He said that the Minister had approved the Dublin Port Tunnel on the basis of an environmental impact statement purely for that route. "If they now want to proceed with a full-blown Eastern Bypass, then that changes the whole impact of the scheme", he said.
Mr Cassidy called for a complete reassessment of both routes as one entire project.
The Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, is expected to announce proposals today for a metro rail plan for Dublin. The multi-billion-pound proposal incorporates surface Luas lines from Sandyford to Dublin Airport and from Tallaght to Connolly Station. It will also include underground elements in the city centre.
Ms O'Rourke will announce details of the plan this morning and indicate when it will be put to tender. Construction of the Sandyford to St Stephen's Green line will proceed immediately and be completed by 2003.