February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The ambitious project, announced by Minister for Transport Martin Cullen, envisages a comprehensive overhaul of Dublin’s transport services with plans for a “Grand Central”-style underground facility at St Stephen’s Green, a new Luas line, two new metro lines and the reopening of several rail lines.
While the plan, known as Transport 21, has been widely welcomed, opposition parties claimed it was merely a “repackaging” of a number of projects already proposed. They also raised questions over whether the plan can be implemented in time and within budget.
The government has moved to prevent a repeat of the problems experienced in the building of previous major infrastructural projects such as Dublin’s M50 ring road and Port Tunnel. The Critical Infrastructure Bill is to be swiftly implemented in order to speed through a number of core pieces of the transport plan.
A new state-appointed implementation body was announced Sunday. Headed up by Trinity College Professor Margaret O’Mahony, the Dublin Transport Authority is tasked with overseeing the smooth running of plans to transform the capital’s transport infrastructure.
O’Mahony said she would be “head-hunting” senior transport executives in the coming months so that the plans would be delivered “on time and on budget.”
Among those on the team are: John Lumsden and Pat Mangan, assistant secretaries at the Department of Transport, and Colin Hunt, special advisor to Minister Cullen.
In addition to the Dublin plans, Transport 21 also envisages motorways between Dublin and all the major cities. It includes plans for the reopening of the Western Rail Corridor, new rail services between Cork and Galway and the upgrading of roads between Letterkenny, Co Donegal, and Galway, Limerick, Sligo, Waterford and Cork to create, what the government plans to call the “Atlantic Corridor.”
Preempting opposition criticism, the taoiseach said everything contained in Transport 21 would be delivered.
Bertie Ahern said everything had been “fully evaluated and built into budgetary planning over the next 10 years.”
He claimed that up to