Transport plan ‘won’t turn Dublin into a building site’

THE woman charged with heading up the country’s ambitious transport plan last night pledged she would not let central Dublin become a giant building site for the next 10 years.

Speaking for the first time since being appointed to the key role of running the €34.4 billion road, rail and tram “master plan”, Professor Margaret O’Mahony admitted the Transport 21 initiative borrowed heavily from earlier schemes which had failed to take off.

The Trinity College professor of civil engineering, yesterday appointed to set up the Dublin Transport Authority (DTA) and be its first chairperson, said she was ready “to knock heads together” to get things moving.

Addressing the controversy surrounding the 10-year plan, dubbed a “reheated gimmick” by opposition parties, Prof O’Mahony insisted the mammoth task could be completed on budget and on schedule.

“Time is of the essence, and I have been told we have got to get this right,” she said.

Prof O’Mahony denied the centre of the capital would have to effectively “shut down” for years while seven new Luas lines, two metro systems and a Grand Central Station-style transport hub underneath St Stephen’s Green are built.

“It’s the little things that bother people. We need much more focus on the day-to-day management of construction on the street,” she said.

Prof O’Mahony said Transport 21 was different to previous stalled attempts to upgrade Ireland’s infrastructure because money and Government will were now in place.

“We have the plan and the finance is there. That has never happened before. There is a sheer determination to get this thing done. It builds on previous plans and changes them where necessary,” she said.

The DTA will report directly to Transport Minister Martin Cullen and is to start “within months”.

Fine Gael Dublin TD Gay Mitchell branded the Transport 21 scheme a “con-job”. “This so-called initiative actually decimates the plans for Dublin already announced by the same Government in 2000. This is one of the most barefaced and dishonest pieces of government trickery in living memory,” he said.