Madam, - It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry when Minister for Transport Martin Cullen, pens an article claiming that the "Dublin metro makes economic sense" (Opinion & Analysis, September 4th).
The Dublin metro makes even less sense than wasting €50 million on electronic voting machines. Linking Dublin airport to St Stephen's Green will not encourage any early morning passengers from around the city to do anything other than drive to the airport on the already congested M50. The airport metro will carry fewer than 20 per cent of passengers using Dublin airport. Wasting €1.5 billion (at current estimates) providing airport access for this small visitor group, who are already well served by competing bus services, is economic lunacy.
If this Government knew anything about transport - and it doesn't - then it would scrap this madcap plan to waste €1.5 billion of taxpayers' money building an airport metro which passengers neither want nor need. This money would be far better spent building an outer orbital ring road outside the M50, relieving the intolerable congestion on the M50, and providing better access to Dublin airport for cars and buses, which is how the overwhelming majority of passengers will continue to get there.
The sooner this Government stops wasting money on transport projects that don't work, the better. The similarity between the airport metro and electronic voting machines is that both will prove equally useless. However, the metro will cost 30 times more.
- Yours, etc,
MICHAEL O'LEARY, Chief Executive, Ryanair, Dublin Airport.