After years of dithering and procrastination by the former minister for transport, Mr Brennan, his successor at the Department, Mr Cullen, has finally announced that the planned height of the Dublin Port tunnel will remain unchanged.
The Minister's ruling disappointed, but did not surprise, the Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA) which had campaigned to have the height of the tunnel increased so as to accommodate "supercube" trucks of up to 4.8 metres in height.
The case for a larger tunnel on this major artery to Dublin Port had received an initially positive hearing from Mr Brennan, in spite of the fact that only a small number of trucks would be affected and the project would suffer further delays.
But consultants estimated the extra work of raising the tunnel from a clearance height of 4.65 metres would cost somewhere between €20 million and €120 million and generate a delay of between one and five months. Attempts to secure a firm price quotation failed. And when, last August, An Bord Pleanála approved the River Shannon tunnel in Limerick, with the same specifications as Dublin Port, the campaign by the IRHA was effectively over. Ireland was to have the same kind of unofficial height regime for trucks as operates on the continent.
Now that the height of the Dublin Port tunnel has been decided, Mr Cullen should turn his attention to more important issues.
A properly joined-up system of public transport for Dublin is desperately needed. And while a modern metro line might eventually provide those connections, there is no chance of it being built in the immediate future. The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has already indicated that only a portion of such a system can be afforded. And the last thing we need is a partially-built underground, a kind of "Luas 2", that will not meet in the middle.
We should learn a hard and expensive lesson from the Luas experience, where the Sandyford track stops at St Stephen's Green; is a different width from the Tallaght line; and does not connect directly with it. The Minister should cut his losses with the grandiose metro project and develop a customer-friendly overground system that will link the Luas, the DART and mainline rail, and provide a link to Dublin Airport.
He should also sit down with the trade unions and negotiate the terms on which they are prepared to provide a modern, efficient bus service for the capital city. If we ever get such a joined-up transport system, an integrated ticketing system will be absolutely essential.