Report recommends separate Department of Transport

A separate Department of Transport combining responsibility for roads, railways, Luas and bus services is the key recommendation of a new report by the Institution of Engineers of Ireland.

The report also proposes that the "common good" provision in the Constitution must be used to deliver the State's roads and public transport programmes.

The institution said single-issue objectors could not be allowed to delay vital projects. In calling for a distinct Department of Transport to ensure the proper co-ordination of land use and transportation policy, it said most other EU states had a distinct transport department.

Such departments were responsible for national policy in relation to roads and railways, "whereas here these critical, interdependent issues are divided between the Departments of Environment and Local Government and the Department of Public Enterprise", it said.

Other recommendations include setting delivery and cost targets for individual infrastructure projects contained in the National Development Plan; independent monitoring of progress against targets, and regular public reporting of progress and the greater utilisation of the constitutional provision in relation to the "common good" when the "right to private ownership" provision is being used to delay projects.

"Transportation infrastructure delivers a benefit to every citizen, to industry, to the economy and to society as a whole. The Institution of Engineers of Ireland believes this fact must be taken more into account, and the constitutional requirement relating to 'exigencies of the common good' recognised in Government policy, in statutory instruments and in planning and judicial matters," the report concluded.