Taoiseach Bertie Ahern came under fire in the Dail today over the Government's transport plan with Opposition parties claiming an appropriate cost-benefit analysis had not been provided.
Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton described the plan "as a load of repackaged, previously announced projects" with no evaluations, no costings and no detail.
Mr Bruton labelled the €34 billion plan "an elaborate sham", claiming he had failed to get a direct answer from the Taoisaech on when work on the Luas line to Lucan would start, when work on the proposed Metro would start and which projects would be Public Private Partnerships.
But Mr Ahern said he was not able to "get into the cost details" of the transport plan as this would sensitive financial information in the public domain before the projects had even gone to tender.
He told the Dail: "We're trying to move the infrastructure from a very good base that we've now brought it to, over the next decade properly planned, properly costed, properly designed and giving people adequate time to get this right,"
"The Opposition should at least acknowledge what we're doing is proper planning and proper investing and stop whinging on about some broken bus".
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte claimed the Minister for Transport Martin Cullen's assertion that only 20 new buses were supplied to Dublin Bus because that was all that was requested was a "blatant untruth".
Mr Rabbitte said that the 20 new buses were to replace "retired buses" and that 210 new buses had been requested for between 2006 and 2008.