Click on individual item for full story | News Archive
Greens claim Leo Varadkar's tenure as Minister of Transport is turning into a real disaster.Green Party Communications | 25.07.2012 | Back to News | News Archive
Greens claim Leo Varadkar's tenure as Minister of Transport is turning into a real disaster.
CIE cash crisis worsened by any lack of real vision for public transport.
Minister Varadkar this morning described a perfect storm of falling passenger demand and rising oil prices as causing the financial crisis in CIE, but increasingly he is a part of the problem, according to Adam Douglas the Green Party Spokesperson for Transport.
Speaking today, he said: "Since coming to office, the Minister has abandoned investment in public transport and switched spending onto new roads that we neither need nor can afford."
Adam Douglas continued: "While the Government needed to inject cash yesterday to save CIE, it is worth noting that it is this same Government's cuts to its subsidy that has pushed the state companies so close to the precipice in the first instance. Now the Government is averting disaster at the last minute by taking from the capital budget of public transport, which is urgently needed for planned new LUAS lines, bus lanes and cycling facilities. The chance of any of these seeing the light of day is lessened by almost every decision this Minister is taking."
"It is galling that the Minister than find the guts of a billion euro for motorways in Galway and Waterford, which are only pet projects for his backbenchers, but can only move crumbs between the public transport spending areas in order to plaster over a creaking nationwide system. We are in a spiral downwards. The lack of support for public transport is leading to lower passenger numbers which in turn is seeing revenues fall, and further reduced investment is making services worse again."
"At the same time that we are cutting public transport capital to the bone, the Government is pouring whatever cash it can find into yet more road building. It should not be surprising then that, while bus and train numbers are in freefall, the volume of traffic on the M50 increased 3% last year. Critical sections of the road are now at full capacity of 120,000 vehicles a day. There are no physical means that these sections of the road can take any more traffic. The only way to avoid gridlock will be to put some form of demand management measures in place, but Minister Varadkar has publicly said there will be not such measures introduced while he is in office. The only other alternative that might work would be the provision of a radical new public transport alternative, but the chances of that are now dead. Car numbers will only increase under the current government programme until the whole system grinds to a halt".
"Minister Varadkar has to urgently reassess his priorities or risk his legacy becoming the Minister for Gridlock," concluded Adam Douglas.
ENDS
