The transport plan announced on Tuesday is quite impressive, and I am less sceptical than some critics about the likelihood of its substantial delivery, reasonably on time. I am sure that a lot has been learned from the costly mistakes of recent years, writes Garret FitzGerald
However, what has been obscured in its presentation is the extent to which, in relation to Dublin at least, what is now proposed involves a huge cutback on what had previously been announced.
I suspect that when the Government decided not to proceed with significant parts of its 2000 Dublin transport plan, its spin-doctors must have told it to announce the remainder as a quite new plan - counting on the short memory of the media to obscure the reality of the cutbacks involved.
It should be recalled that the July 2000 metro announcement by minister for public transport Mary O'Rourke involved three metro routes - one from Shanganagh to Swords, through a "central tunnel starting in Ranelagh"; one from Citywest via Tallaght and Kimmage, using the same tunnel to reach the city centre; and a third running around the west of the city, linking Finglas, Blanchardstown, Clondalkin and Tallaght.
Preparatory work for this metro system was to "start at once", with a view to seeking invitations to tender within 12 months, and it was announced that the Luas line from Sandyford to St Stephen's Green was to be "integrated into the metro system by providing for tunnel construction to start at Ranelagh". The new plan announced on Tuesday drops half of that metro plan. The metro from Tallaght via Crumlin and Kimmage to the city centre (the much shorter and more populated route which the Tallaght Luas ought to have taken), has quietly disappeared, as has the proposed metro extension to Citywest, now downgraded to a Luas branch.
And, contrary to Mary O'Rourke's assurance, only the northern half of the Shanganagh-Dublin airport-Swords metro is now to be built, for the commitment that the Shanganagh to St Stephen's Green Luas line would be "integrated into the metro system" has been quietly revoked. As a result, when this metro is built, everyone travelling between Luas-adjacent parts of south Dublin and the airport will, contrary to past assurances, now have to change trains at St Stephen's Green, carrying their luggage between different levels at that station.
Moreover, three of the four Luas routes announced in "Platform for Change" in November 2001 have been quietly dropped.
The Luas line linking Kilbarrack with the airport has disappeared, as has the Dundrum-Terenure-O'Connell Street-Whitehall line, and also that along the Grand Canal from Dolphin's Barn to Spencer Dock across the Liffey. We are now left with only one new Luas route - to Lucan - which, it appears, is to enter the city by Thomas Street rather than by the existing cross-city route north of the Liffey.
In addition, the promised electrification of the commuter rail line to Kildare has been abandoned: for some unexplained reason electrification is to be halted at Hazelhatch, 10 miles from Heuston, so only people living there or in areas nearer to the city, such as Clondalkin, will be able to travel on beyond Heuston. So, the great majority of commuters on this line - coming from Kildare, Newbridge, Naas, and Sallins - will now have to change trains if they want access to the centre of the city.
That is not what we were led to expect by Platform for Change, the official integrated strategy for the greater Dublin area published by the Government's Dublin Transportation Office just four years ago, in November 2001.
That document proclaimed that "the centre-piece of the Dart/Suburban rail strategy is an underground inter-connector linking Heuston station with East Wall Junction via Pearse Station and Docklands. This inter-connector allows for through running from the Kildare line to the Maynooth line and/or the Dundalk line. Both [ the Kildare and Maynooth lines] will be electrified."
A curious feature of this revised plan is the inclusion for the first time of two parallel rail services between St Stephen's Green and O'Connell Street. In addition to the new metro line running north from the Green, the Government has apparently decided to reverse its earlier decision not to clutter up the city centre by running the Luas through College Green, where, according to Dublin Bus, the only south-north street through the city centre currently has to accommodate 55 per cent of all Dublin bus services.
One may question the rationality of this costly duplication.
The now largely abandoned Dublin plan of 2000-2001 was estimated at the time to cost €21.9 billion, separate figures being given for metro, Luas and Dart for both periods up to and after 2006.
The flimsy documents published last Tuesday contain no such details, on the unconvincing basis that such figures have now suddenly become commercially sensitive! It seems more likely that the Government is concerned to prevent comparisons being made between cost figures per mile in 2001 for each type of rail service and cost figures today.
The dropping of promised rail services to such areas as Crumlin, Kimmage, Churchtown, Rathfarnham, Terenure, Finglas, as well as north Dublin between Whitehall and Kilbarrack, will not be helpful to the Government at election time.
But had the programme announced in 2001 not been chopped in this way, it would have been impossible, within the €34.4 billion that Brian Cowen has allocated to transport, to provide for rail commuter trains serving Cork and Galway, as well as the western rail and road corridors, and the completion by 2010 of the motorway programme.
An aspect of this project which will raise doubts is the proposal that €8 billion of the €34.4 billion will be financed through public-private partnerships (PPP), including €2 billion from road tolls levied by private interests. Irish and international experience with such PPPs has not been good: some school projects financed in this way have proved more costly overall than State-financed projects, and no one has even attempted to defend the financing of West Link and East Link bridge projects on a PPP basis.
The Government clearly counted on the short memories of both media and Opposition to enable it to get away with this tactic.
Judging by the absence of any public reference to this cutback issue in the days immediately following the Government's announcement, its gamble paid off.
Much greater vigilance will be needed if we are ever to get good open government in Ireland.