After months - if not years - of dithering, no practical and realistic set of proposals is yet in place to address Dublin's chronic transport problem. Last night's cabinet decision to endorse a part-overground, part-underground Luas - and to forego £114m in EU aid in the process - is a dreadful example of political cowardice. It looks suspiciously like an attempt by government to postpone the evil day when the streets are dug up with the politicians taking the flak. The likelihood now is that not a shovel will be lifted - let alone a tunnel bored - until well into the next millennium. In an attempt to confuse the issue and provide themselves with political cover, Ministers have turned the clock back to the early 1990's and reissued a version of the Dublin Transport Initiative light rail scheme which includes a link to Ballymun, with an underground section in Dublin Central. This revived scheme has no designated start-up or finishing dates, although the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, accepts that work is unlikely to commence before 2000. Even within this framework, the Tallaght and Dundrum lines will be given precedence. The Ballymun section is part of what Ms O'Rourke coyly describes as "a longer term vision."
Political considerations - a general election would probably coincide with maximum traffic disturbance, commercial losses and public annoyance under the original scheme - appear to have killed off the more limited 1994-1999 project. They have also buried concerns over exchequer costs. And, at the heart of the Cabinet decision, lies an unwillingness to confront the powerful motoring and business lobbies.
No properly-costed figures are available for this programme. All the Minister will say is that the integrated scheme will cost £400m plus. How big that financial "plus" will be depends on geological studies in relation to tunnelling in the city centre; delays caused by a planning inquiry into the expanded scheme and other matters. EU funding for the scheme will have to be negotiated under Irish structural funding for 2000 to 2006. A letter to this newspaper from the president of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland made the point that planning for the suburban rail system is now one year behind schedule; two years behind for quality bus corridors; two/three years behind for LUAS, and four years behind for the port tunnel and completion of the C-ring motorway. It is a catalogue of failure by any political measurement.
The revised LUAS plan will lose the £114m allocated to it by the EU under the 1994-1999 National Plan. The Minister insists that this funding will not be lost completely to Ireland and that it can be used for other transport projects. But she did not give details. The suspicion of recent weeks, that the Cabinet was postponing an unpalatable and unpopular decision, has grown into a conviction. The pattern of political decision-making by successive governments in relation to the transport needs of Dublin has been disastrous. Those in power have almost invariably discriminated against the poorer parts of the city, where the need for public transport is greatest. The Dublin Transport Initiative of the early 1990's proposed a package of measures which included a three-line light rail system, enhanced bus services, upgraded and extended rail commuter services and integrated ticketing. The three-line system included lines to Tallaght, Cabinteely and Ballymun. But when EU and exchequer funding fell short, it was the Ballymun line which was axed. Now, five years on and under political pressure, Ministers have again pencilled Ballymun into the plan. They are making it up as they go along and the ordinary people of Dublin are paying the price.