TAOISEACH SHOULD
NOW APOLOGISE FOR TUNNEL SLURS!
TAOISEACH SHOULD
NOW APOLOGISE FOR TUNNEL SLURS!Thursday, 25 February 1999
"An Taoiseach should immediately apologise for his begrudging attitude towards proper planning and his dismissal of valid fears about the Dublin Port Tunnel on Dublin's Northside" demanded Pádraig de Burca, Clontarf Labour Party candidate in the forthcoming local elections.
"In last week's Dáil debate on infrastructure development Bertie Ahern TD effectively dismissed the valid concerns of the people of Fairview, Marino and Clontarf. This was a mere two days after the public inquiry into the Dublin Port Tunnel (DPT) was announced. Now, after Geoconsult have been fined for the Heathrow Tunnel collapse, it is clear that the residents were right and the Taoiseach was wrong."
Mr. de Burca believes that next month's inquiry has been completely undermined by Deputy Ahearn's statement to the Dáil that "Work on the Port Tunnel project is held up because engineers cannot convince members of the public concerned that their houses will not fall into a hole when they begin work on the tunnel."
According to Mr. de Burca these are the self same engineers, Geoconsult, who were responsible for what a London Judge called 'the worst civil engineering disaster in the UK in the last quarter century' and it was on a tunnel using the self-same method, the New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM). There are well-known dangers world-wide on the NATM and it has caused the collapse of tunnels in Germany and Japan as well as Heathrow Airport during the construction phase.
"An Taoiseach also stated that sometimes people effected 'had too much of a say'. This is a terrible attitude to take to democracy and accountability and echoes the consistent lack of local consultation to date in the process. At a time when Mr. Ahearn's Cabinet Colleagues from earlier Governments are being silent on planning matters in Dublin, he seems to want people in Fairview, Marino, Clontarf and Santry to remain silent about issues that concern them. Has he learned nothing from the appalling revelations to date at the Flood Tribunal? Is he trying to undermine the Public Inquiry."
"An Taoiseach's other statements about "people swinging out of trees along the south eastern motorway" and swans not moving off the airport road are bad enough, but at least they were not made while a public inquiry was about to get underway. Mr. Ahearn should immediately apologise to the people he insulted and to the Inquiry team. This blatant interference in the process is unacceptable."
I call on all Candidates in the effected areas to present themselves before the Inquiry. My colleague Derek McDowell TD and I will certainly be there.
(See Northside People article)
The Taoiseach: They made that point, particularly on the capital side. I agree the National Roads Authority and the Department of the Environment and Local Government should continue to press ahead with the road project. The NRA programme published last month details approximately 20 projects under construction, under detailed planning or ready to start.
To his credit, the Minister, Deputy McCreevy, has been pushing to speed up capital programmes. With the greatest respect, it is neither a lack of money nor the Government's desire to delay these projects. A project on the airport road is the subject of a court case because of a row over whether the swans will move off it. Work on the Port Tunnel project is held up because engineers cannot convince members of the public concerned that their houses will not fall into a hold when they begin work on the tunnel. These are the matters delaying those some of the infrastructural projects, not a lack of resources. I believe that it is a good deal of nonsense, but money is available to deal with matters.
Other objectors include people who are trying to protect their gardens and those and other issues are holding up major infrastructural projects. Work is not being delayed because of a lack of resources. People are entitled to their say in a democracy and sometimes they have too much of a say. That is what is delaying these projects. People are swinging out of trees along the south eastern motorway delaying work on that project. If we can overcome these difficulties, we might get on with building the infrastructure which the you suggest and I certainly would like to do it.
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