Opposition dismisses 10-year transport plan as ‘political con job

FINE GAEL last night dismissed the transport plan as a “political con job” and wasted opportunity.

The party’s finance spokesman Richard Bruton led a concerted opposition savaging of the initiative. He said the 10-year programme amounted to little more than the reheating of projects dating back to 1998.

“The Government has repackaged every transport plan over the past seven years that they have failed to deliver and tried to present this as a new transport plan for the country,” Mr Bruton said.

“This represents little more than a political con job. This announcement has more to do with delivering the Government to the next election rather than delivering the travelling public to their destination on time.”

Mr Bruton pointed out that many of the new initiatives had been promised for years, such as completion of the inter-urban motorway network, which had been set to be finished next year but would be ready by 2010 under the Transport 21 programme.

Labour scorned the Coalition’s ability to deliver the bulk of the schemes on time and within cost.

The party’s transport spokeswoman Roisin Shorthall pointed to the amount of commuter projects that had been allowed to spiral over budget.

“On paper, it is an impressive set of proposals, but commuters trapped in traffic jams or waiting for buses that don’t come will be sceptical about the Transport Minister’s ability to actually deliverer on his promises.

“The capacity of the Government to get the civil service to draw-up impressive plans on their behalf has never been in doubt, but the record of this Government since 1997 calls seriously into question their capacity to deliver,” she said.

Green Party Transport spokesman Eamon Ryan said he welcomed many of the projects but they were coming far too late.

“I am deeply sceptical of the Government’s ability to deliver. Mary Harney and Bertie Ahern should be apologising for how they got it wrong by separating the two Luas lines in the city centre and for putting off the Metro for so many years,” Mr Ryan said.

“The problem we have now is that, for the next five years, the main projects delivered will be a series of national motorways leading into Dublin.

He added that the “long distance car commuting patterns that have been established by this Government are going to be very hard to reverse”.