Sir, - The recent war of insults between Minister Mary O'Rourke and the former chairman of CIE has all the appearance of the final public row in a very messy divorce case. The truth is that the marriage was on the rocks for years and it is we, the children of the State, who will suffer the consequences, as we mourn the lack of a proper public transport system.
CIE management will plead financial neglect over the years as the cause of the breakdown but they have also shown themselves capable of incredible tunnel vision. It is hard to understand how they became so dazzled by the potential profits from developing the Spensor Dock site that they neglected to think of the rail plans for the area, which any five-year-old could see should have been part of the development. They are only now completing a National Rail Needs Study, while Noel Dempsey's blue-eyed boys in the National Roads Authority have already scooped the Department of Finance pot with their US highway copybook code.
Nor is the Minister without fault in the matter. Having toyed with the Luas Light Rail system against the advice of her own consultants, she seems to have spent more time in recent years on the glamorous world of Telecom privatisation and promoting digital, rather than people, traffic.
Despite frequent leaked reports about how the rail system was to be saved and showered with financial gifts, she let the Cabinet approve a National Development plan bursting with new motorways which will lead only to urban traffic jams. The £2 billion promised for public transport will be only a fraction of the resources that it will take to get us back on the rails. - Yours, etc.,
Cllr Eamon Ryan (GP), Ashfield Road, Dublin 6.