Traffic congestion the real issue — not hospital site
The solution being proposed is to build it on another site rather than to fix the actual problem — traffic congestion. That would mean city-based children would have to battle their way through congested traffic to a hospital in the outer suburbs. For many children, that alternative is worse than the Mater.
It is the traffic issue that needs to be solved. Dublin traffic is severely affected by a complex of self-defeating policies. A good start would be to reverse some of these, starting with the toll on the Port Tunnel. It discourages traffic from availing of the tunnel, which has a low level of utilisation. That is why many thousands of vehicles going to and from the M1 (including airport traffic) travel instead through Dublin 7, with many passing within 100 yards of the Mater site. The situation is worsened by the arrangements to prevent tunnel traffic from using the Samuel Beckett bridge, obliging drivers bound for Dublin 2 to pay another toll across the Eastlink and then detour through Dublin 4.
