POLITICAL REACTION:OPPOSITION PARTIES have strongly attacked the Government's shelving of major infrastructural projects in the capital plan while "disappointment" was the reaction among Labour TDs in Dublin.
Fianna Fáil said the plan would lead to the loss of 9,000 jobs, while Sinn Féin estimated the reduction in employment at 7,500.
Labour backbencher Tommy Broughan said the shelving of the Dart, Metro and other transport projects would come as a major disappointment to Dubliners.
Mr Broughan said the €200 million already spent on the abandoned transport projects was “money down the drain” and warned it was possible companies which qualified for the final stages of the Metro procurement process could sue the Government.
While primary responsibility for “this disaster” lay with the previous Fianna Fáil/Green administration, it was disappointing that Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar and other Ministers had not tried harder to keep the projects alive, he said.
Another Labour TD, Brendan Ryan, said he was disappointed but not surprised at the axing of the Metro North project, which would have created thousands of jobs in his Dublin North constituency.
Mr Ryan welcomed the go-ahead for the national children’s hospital but said the plans must include provision for a future Metro North station.
Labour Dublin Central TD Joe Costello described the decision to axe the Dublin Institute of Technology campus at Grangegorman as extremely disappointing.
“Much of the project is a public-private partnership and the State would not require significant capital to deliver a major project which would have enormous benefits in terms of job creation and education nationally,” he said.
Fianna Fáil’s public expenditure spokesman Seán Fleming said the plan, by making no reference to job creation, completely ignored the most important issue in society.
Sinn Féin enterprise spokesman Peadar Tóibín said capital expenditure cuts were proof that the bailout of private bondholders was the biggest threat to the Irish economy.
Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said that by abandoning critical infrastructure projects the Government “will hinder our recovery”.