Ba mhaith liom ar dtús mo chomhghairdeas ollmhór a ghabháil le Catherine Connolly ar an mbua iontach a bhí aici an tseachtain seo caite. Guím gach rath uirthi. Déanaim comhbhrón le Sr. Stan. Laoch ab ea í a d'oibrigh go díograiseach ar son iad siúd a bhí gan dídean sa tír seo. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dílis. Déanaim cáineadh orthu siúd a chur an teach IPAS i nDroichead Átha trí thine. Ba bheag nár bhfuair páistí agus tuismitheoirí bás sa teach sin ar an oíche. This morning, commuter traffic on the M3 going to Dublin was backed up well into County Meath. The journey for tens of thousands of people took two hours. Meath is the biggest commuter county in the country. It is the only county in the country where the majority of workers leave the county to go to work every single day. Some 90,000 people in Meath commute to work on a daily basis and 60,000 of those are forced to use cars due to the lack of a rail line. Navan is the biggest town in the country without a rail line at the moment. In 1994, Fianna Fáil's Noel Dempsey promised to build a rail line between Navan and Dublin. The delivery date slipped and slipped. We were promised to have it in 2015 but it was never built. I am the chair of the Meath on Track campaign and the people of Meath have campaigned strongly for this over the years and yet we still do not have that rail line. In 2021, it was promised to us again. We were told that the building of the rail line would start by 2030 and it would be built by 2036. This promise was met with derision in County Meath, to be honest. It is typical horizon politics - so far in the distance that it never gets done. In 2036, it will be 42 years since the rail line was first promised by Fianna Fáil. In 1862, the original Navan to Dublin rail line was built in three years with picks and shovels. Despite all the technology we have now, the wait for the project is now heading towards 42 years. It is incredibly glacial in its delivery. The economic cost of congestion in the greater Dublin area is incredible. Some €336 million was the cost of it in 2024, according to the Department of Transport, and it is estimated that by 2040, congestion in the greater Dublin area will cost €1.5 billion. Studies have been done on congestion in European cities and Dublin is the worst in terms of time and cost. There have also been studies of the speed of traffic in Dublin at the moment. The average speed eight years ago was 12 km/h. The average speed of horse-drawn carriages in Dublin in the 19th century was 16 km/h. We currently in an incredible crisis in terms of infrastructure in the Dublin area. Why is it that this Government cannot deliver infrastructure on time? Why is it that we have the slowest planning, permits, judicial reviews and tendering in the whole of the European Union in terms of such projects? When will the Navan to Dublin rail line be built? What will the Government do to change the glacial pace of infrastructure in this country?
Sentiment score: 0.03
The problem is that if one takes the future tense out of the Minister's statement there is very little the Government can say. The Minister has been in government for so long at this stage and these particular problems in planning, judicial reviews and tendering have not appeared out of nothing. They have been as a result of the Government's implementation. One of the big frustrations that exists among commuters in this country is that, on one level, they are getting the stick of extra costs. Last year, commuters paid €1.9 billion in motor tax and VRT and they contributed €4.1 billion in fuel taxes. Just last week the Government put up the cost of tolls again on an M50 that commuters have paid €2.2 billion for already. Mind you, those two bridges cost €53 million to build in the first place. Those commuters have paid for those bridges over and over again and yet the Government is using this stick on those commuters by putting up that price again instead of using the carrot of providing the necessary public transport they want to be able to use. That is where the major frustration is. On one level, the Government cannot introduce and cannot develop infrastructure because the systems are grinding to a halt with bureaucracy and red tape-----
Sentiment score: -0.18
-----while on another level the Government is using a stick to try to get people out of cars and that stick is impoverishing many people.
Sentiment score: 0.00