Sir, - I refer to the letter from Mr. Fintan Cassidy of the Marino Development Action Group, published on July 18th.
Firstly, in regard to the availability of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Dublin Port Tunnel Project, a notice was published in the national press on July 5th announcing that the EIS was available for inspection and for purchase from that date. To coincide with this, a copy of the EIS was distributed to the residents associations along the tunnel route.
This distribution included making available a copy to the representatives of Marino Development Action Group (MDAG) on June 28th. A further copy was hand delivered to a committee member of MDAG on July 4th. Also, a copy was placed in Marino Library, to allow local people easy access to the document, and this arrangement was published in the notice referred to.
Mr. Cassidy's letter goes on to dispute parts of the content of the EIS and describes some of the response proposals as "fire brigade reaction". On the contrary, the EIS, sets out clearly the likely environmental effects as a result of the implementation of this major and important scheme. it provides a full examination of all the relevant issues and details all the responses that are included in the scheme in relation to these issues.
Mr. Cassidy mentions an additional cost of £40 million to £50 million for the tunnel, as a result of the recent UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) report into NATM tunnelling. This speculative extra cost is unfounded. The HSE report sets out a very logical and safety conscious approach to NATM work. All applicable recommendations have been, and will continue to be, taken account of in the project design and construction. To date, no recommendation from this report has resulted in any major revision to the current cost estimate for this scheme.
The Dublin Port Tunnel will bring enormous benefits to the whole of Dublin city. It will allow heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) bound for the port, which have to pass through the city centre and along residential routes, to transfer instead to the Dublin Port Tunnel route. Dublin Port currently handles a third of Ireland's seaport trade and is a major generator of HGV traffic. The removal of HGVs will dramatically enhance the city centre environment and will facilitate the implementation of other aspects of the Dublin Transportation Initiative by releasing road space for public transport measures, such as quality bus corridors and light rail transit (LRT). - Yours etc.,
Project engineer, Dublin Port Tunnel,
7 Lower Fitzwilliam Street,
Dublin 2.