Dublin is unlikely to get its long-promised Luas light rail system until 2005 at the earliest, following a Government decision yesterday to put part of the route underground in the city centre.
The angry Opposition reaction to the announcement is expected to spill over in the Dail today when calls are expected for a debate.
Within minutes of the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, unveiling the plan after a long Cabinet meeting, Opposition parties denounced the plan as a shameful surrender to powerful vested interests.
Though a statement said the Cabinet had decided to proceed with an expanded first phase of the project, which would extend it to Connolly Station, Ballymun/Dublin Airport and Sandyford, it is clear that this recasting will mean further lengthy delays.
Critics immediately branded the decision as "a complete copout", because it rejected the main recommendation of the W.S. Atkins study, published last week, that CIE should be allowed to go ahead as planned with an on-street Luas system.
One source described the "suas, sios" (up, down) system now proposed as "Bertie's Irish solution to an Irish problem". But there was no comment from Mr Donal Mangan, director of CIE's light rail project team. He said the decision would have to be studied in detail.
Ms O'Rourke has estimated the overall cost of this extended system at "£400 million-plus", while transportation specialists say a more realistic estimate would be at least £600 million, with or without EU aid.
Ms O'Rourke accepted last night that the £114 million which the EU allocated for CIE's current proposal would not be spent on it, because of the delays in redesigning the project. But she insisted again that the money would "not be lost to Ireland".
Despite an assurance that the Government's wanted to build the proposed Tallaght and Sandyford lines "without delay", the 2.5 km tunnel in the city centre requires "detailed technical confirmation", including geological tests.
The Minister said the two lines - Tallaght/Connolly and Sandyford/ Ballymun/ Airport - would be the first phase of a longer-term vision for an extended light rail network serving destinations such as Swords, Docklands, Cabinteely and Clondalkin.
She insisted that what was now being proposed was "consistent with the Government's repeated commitment to implement the core light rail network recommended by DTI" (Dublin Transportation Initiative) in its overall strategy for the city, published in 1994.
Ms O'Rourke said the city centre underground section, linking St Stephen's Green with Broadstone, was intended to address the "scale of disruption" associated with an on-street system and potential longer term road capacity constraints in the central area.
However, the Government was "committed" to implementing the full DTI strategy, including the traffic management elements planned by Dublin Corporation to reduce the level of traffic in the central area, even though these were intended to cater for an on-street Luas.
"In particular, the Government gave the go-ahead for environmental traffic cells in the city and for three road schemes identified as essential for effective traffic management in the city," the Minister declared. These are a new bridge at Macken Street, the proposed Cork Street/Coombe relief route and a minor scheme at Mercer Street.