Minister admits delay in getting motorists to abandon cars

Getting motorists out of their cars and onto public transport is taking much longer than anticipated, the Dβil was told.

The Minister for Public Enterprise, Mrs O'Rourke, acknowledged that the "transition from less usage of private motor transport to more usage of public transport" is not going as quickly as the Department would like, but she said there needs to be "much greater management of road use between public and private transport".

She believed there should be a separate "transport department which would look after both public transport and road transport", an opinion shared by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, with whom she shares responsibility for aspects of transport.

Mrs O'Rourke was responding to Fine Gael's public enterprise spokesman, Mr Jim Higgins, who pointed to the CI╔ annual report, where the chairman estimated that traffic gridlock was costing the company £40 million a year.

Mr Higgins said the fact that "this damning indictment emanates from a company in which she is the main shareholder is a sign that matters are disimproving".

The Minister replied however, "I admire that candid statement by the chairman of CI╔. Why should he seek to mask that fact?"

She said that the management of road usage "needs to be sharpened up if the situation is to be remedied.

There have been huge improvements and huge money has been invested in public transport. That is a fact of life."

Mr Higgins said it undermined the government's campaign to get people from private to public transport if a bus journey from Dublin city centre to Blanchardstown is taking 45 minutes longer than it used to four or five years ago.

"Does the Minister not accept that Dublin is effectively choking to death? There are now traffic jams not alone at peak times during the evening and morning, but traffic jams where they never were before and traffic jams all day long."

Reiterating the need for a separate transport department, the Minister pointed to the delivery of 12 DART cars later this year or early next year, the first delivery of 80 diesel cars next year, the completion of LUAS in 2003 and the delivery of additional Quality Bus Corridors.