FROM CITY CENTRE DUBLIN?
When the LUAS street tramway was first proposed under CIÉ management, the line was to be a continuous run from Tallaght to Sandyford with only one service depot needed for the whole system. So, how did we end up with two separate lines, one crossing the city centre at O’Connell St. and the other coming to a dead end at Stephen’s Green, and the necessity to build two service depots instead of one?
Well, citizens, you can thank the Phoney Democrats once again for another botch-up of public transport planning in favour of ideological fantasies and against the interests of the citizens of Dublin which has characterised their behaviour throughout their period of being in government in this shambling FF/PD coalition of the past ten years.
When the Phoney Democrats and FF got back into power in 1997 plans were already underway by CIÉ for a single LUAS line, Tallaght to Dundrum, crossing O’Connell bridge to Stephen’s Green via College St. and Dawson St. Mary O’Rourke was appointed with the grandiose title of “Minister for Public Enterprise” and given responsibility for the state owned public transport utilities. Mrs O’Rourke halted all development of the LUAS line planning within weeks of taking office and went off on a tangent ordering a consultants report on running a tunnel through the city centre instead of the already agreed LUAS on-street line approved by the Rainbow Government. This wasn’t her own idea but came directly from the office of Phoney Democrat leader Mary Blarney and her special advisor Gerry Duggan who was previously an ESB official.
O’Rourke’s consultant’s report couldn’t present a case for abandoning the street tramway and was pulped the day after it was published costing the taxpayer I£250,000 at the time. However the baleful influence of Duggan and Mary Blarney had done the damage and the LUAS project was snatched from CIÉ and given to a new agency, the RPA, which was set up to counter the Trade Union influence in CIÉ and be more amenable to the FF/PD privatisation agenda. Duggan also interfered with the planning of the proposed rail-link to Dublin Airport eventually forcing CIÉ to abandon a direct link from Liffey Junction via Finglas to the Airport in favour of an impractical link from Howth Junction Dart station through Swords to the Airport. In his total ignorance of transport realities, Duggan failed to take into account the already crowded nature of the line from Howth Junction to Connolly Station which had to accommodate, Dart, Outer Suburban and Belfast Mainline trains and could not accommodate Airport trains as well without major additional tracks to make the line a four-track section between Howth Junction and Connolly.
Thus we have neither a joined up LUAS line in the city centre nor a rail-link to Dublin Airport due entirely to Phoney Democrat ideological posturing and downright incompetence in dealing with strategic transport planning for the capital city. As a reward for his incompetence, Duggan was appointed to the Board of CIÉ by this shambolic PD/FF bunch of clowns masquerading as a Government of Ireland. The opportunity now arises on 24th Bealtaine/May for the voters to give a much deserved cic sa tóin and P45’s to the whole lot of them.
FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/Dublin, 17 Bealtaine/May 2007.
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