The Opposition has questioned the Government's ability to deliver on the 10-year transport plan announced today, but reaction from the tourism industry has been generally favourable.
The Labour Party said the 10-year transport plan published by the Government today was an "impressive set of proposals" on paper but that commuters would be sceptical that the plans could be delivered.
Labour transport spokeswoman Roisin Shortall said the record of the government since 1997 "calls seriously into question their capacity to deliver.
Roisin Shorthall
"Indeed exactly three years ago this month, Minister Cullen in his then capacity as Minister for the Environment brought all his ministerial colleagues to Dublin Castle for a similarly lavish launch of the National Spatial Plan.
"Little of that plan has been implemented, and many of its key recommendations were ignored within 12 months when the Government announced its decentralisation programme," she said.
Green Party transport spokesman Eamon Ryan said that while he welcomed the announcements of the various public transport plans, he was "deeply sceptical" of the Government's ability to deliver them.
"While the Green Party welcomes the public transport plans and in Government would ensure that they are delivered, the tragedy is that they are being delivered so late. The long distance car commuting patterns that have been established by this Government are going to be very hard to reverse."
Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton said there was little new in the plan, no detailed costs and "little reason to believe that this Government could or would deliver on their 'new' 10-year transport plan.
"The Government have re-packaged every transport project over the last seven years that they have failed to deliver and tried to present this as a new transport plan for the country," he said.
"This represents little more than a political con-job. In 1999 and 2001 the National Development Plan (NDP) and the Dublin Transportation Office's A Platform for Change respectively announced virtually all of the transport projects "unveiled" today.
Mr Bruton said that given the Government's track record with transport plans such as A Platform for Change and the National Development Plan, the public would "be right to conclude that today's announcement has more to do with delivering the Government to the next election rather than delivering the travelling public to their destination on time".
Employers' group Ibec said the plan was an important indication of the Government's determination to overcome infrastructure deficits that are undermining national competitiveness.
"Delivery of the plan in the 10 year timeframe will, however, be a major challenge for the agencies charged with implementation," said Ibec's transport director, Reg McCabe.
Ibec's transport director, Reg McCabe
The Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) said the creation of new regional road and rail access routes to the regions would increase tourism growth and help to reverse the decline in the numbers of tourists visiting Ireland with cars.
It particularly welcomed the reopening of the western rail corridor and the metro line to Dublin airport.
John Power of the IHF said there has been industry concern in relation to regional access.
"Low cost and ease of access to and within a destination, are major factors determining where a tourist chooses to goes and since the late 1990s the IHF has called on the Government to address regional transportation strategies to encourage a more even spread of tourism throughout the country," he said.
AA spokesman Conor Faughnan welcomed the level of investment and but said that it was difficult to believe that the problems that have "bedevilled the transport sector in Ireland" would be addressed.
"It was eleven years between Dublin declaring that it was going to build a Luas and the first passenger being carried. The M50 was 25 years in the building for 35 kilometres of motorway," he added.
"This is just an unacceptably glacial pace of development I didn't hear anything today to convince us that the Government has grasped the nettle of planning delays."