The Government will finalise its proposals on the metro system promised for Dublin in the near future, the Minister for Transport said yesterday.
Mr Brennan said that the Programme for Government contained a commitment to develop a metro with a link to Dublin airport. "I have received from the Railway Procurement Agency the revised outline business case for line one of the metro, which involved a line from the airport to the city centre.
The total estimate direct capital cost of construction in 2002 prices is €1.2 billion."
He added that he was finalising his proposals "in the context of the wider transport needs of the greater Dublin area."
The Fine Gael spokesman on transport, Mr Denis Naughten, challenged the Minister to define the difference between "the near future" and "shortly", claiming that he appeared to rotate the terms when referring to the timescale for his presentation to Cabinet on the issue.
"The Minister has been using them for the past 12 or 18 months, but it is like a broken record at this stage. Will the Minister define those terms and outline the timescale involved? When will a decision be made on this matter ?" Mr Brennan said he fully stood over his statement that the metro from the city centre to the airport, although his preference would be that it would go to Swords, would form the first part of a city and countywide system.
"What the Taoiseach and I are saying is that we cannot undertake the city and countywide system now, but it is sensible that what we do here forms the first leg of an overall city and county plan, which is in the DTO platform for change.
"That is totally consistent." He added that it was necessary to link the two Luas lines and the metro project from Swords, hopefully, or from the airport to St Stephen's Green, which would turn the Luas line into a metro line from Swords to Sandyford. "That would be a fantastic addition to the city."
The Minister was also pressed by other Opposition deputies to say when he would bring proposals to Cabinet.
The Labour transport spokeswoman, Ms Róisín Shortall, said that although there had been a great deal of talk and many reports, and various committees had met to discuss the project, it was hard to know whether it was going anywhere. Mr Brennan said it was a Government commitment. "We are in the final phases of seeing how best we can finance the project, service the financing and move the project forward without too much delay."
He added that the Taoiseach and himself did not envisage the immediate construction of the entire citywide metro system, but envisaged living up to the commitment in the Programme for Government.
