PD meeting/transport policy: The Progressive Democrats have said the Government's ambitious €35 billion Transport 21 plan will need to be amended to include a commitment for an outer ring road around Dublin, linking Balbriggan, Navan and Kilcullen, Co Kildare.
Yesterday Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said the road should also be connected to a proposed site in north Dublin for a massive container port and that Dublin Port should be moved to the site.
Mr McDowell said the plan, published in detail earlier this year by the party, would free up 600 acres of port land in the city centre for redevelopment.
The proposals have been identified as a key infrastructure and transport policy for the party, and it will be holding a special conference next month to discuss the plans. However, Mr McDowell yesterday declined to comment on a key transport issue facing the Government, the funding and reform of the bus service. Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats have remained deadlocked on the reform and funding package, amid differences about the level of competition to be allowed in the new market.
Mr McDowell declined to say whether the party had changed its position on a requirement that up to a quarter of existing Dublin Bus routes be opened to competition.
"I don't want to pre-empt a Cabinet discussion, which is going on at the moment," he said. "I believe it's better rather than talking to you about this now, to talk about it with my Cabinet colleagues. I think a more positive outcome . . . for transport users will be obtained if we talk about this in private."
He made his comments to journalists during a break from a special PD parliamentary party "think-in" in Malahide, Co Dublin, yesterday. Describing the party's proposals for moving Dublin Port as "a much broader, more ambitious and more practical approach" than current Government policy, Mr McDowell said his party had yet to raise the issue in detail with Fianna Fáil.
However, he believed they would come round to support the plan. "I don't believe Fianna Fáil would be opposed to the issue," he said. He also rejected suggestions that the party should be trying to implement the Dublin Port and outer ring road policy within Government, instead of debating them outside.
"One of the things that's going to be increasingly the message between now and next summer is that the fact that we are in Government doesn't detract from us as an engine house for ideas and a vision for a new Ireland."
Mr McDowell said he believed the outer ring road now needed to be included as a priority along with the motorway proposals.
"The notion that the M50 is the only point of contact between the Transport 21 motorways is just increasingly unsustainable," he said.