Are you being fair to the content ? I read this and after reading your comment went back and read it again. It appears to be a fair and balanced list of 10 significant submissions to ABP's Oral Hearing, and it presents both a summary of the point/s made by the submitter and an explanation/commentary/rebuttal. Sure it's not a one sided gung-ho "Up the Metro" article in the style of the redtops, but it certainly is a useful contribution to the discussion and understanding both sides of the discussion. No other publication that I am aware of presents matters of public interest in anything like an impartial or balanced manner.
The second article in today's IT, also by Olivia Kelly, puts the ABP Oral Hearing in context which is helpful given the never ending saga that this project has turned out to be.
It's useful to have a source for facts and contrarian opinions (such as last weeks article by McDowell), no matter how much we disagreed with them or find them unappealing. If nothing else it stimulates necessary and worthwhile debate.
O'Connell St is on Sheriff St apparently too.
I'd be sympathetic to this argument of balance if we hadn't had several critical articles by McDowell and McDonald on the subject with very little dissenting views from them over the last couple of years. It's nice that the IT is finally drawing on some positives of the transport plan, but its on a background of a fairly relentless uninformed criticism of rail planning in the city.
I dont Think so the times never seam to run positivie storys on infastructure and we need it
Ah, Michael McDowell, my first port of call when I want an informed opinion about public transport.
It’s not a great headline but the substance isn’t bad. Hopefully we get the media properly engaging with this infrastructure project and not going for low hanging fruit cynicism.
When it gets cancelled McDowell and the times will have played a significant part in that decision. They know the people of north Dublin can't hold them accountable.
There was never any intention to build it in the first place. The Irish Establishment is pure evil and at war with ordinary people in this country whom they are currently replacing with cheap labour who come from countries were sitting on the roof of a bus is normal. I'm not being sarcastic. This is the plan.
Mod: This is suggesting a conspiracy with no evidence. Please refrain from such posts unless you supply evidence.
There was never any intention to build it in the first place.
This is deranged.
Any folk looking to attend some of the hearing tomorrow? Was going to but have other commitments and curious how it will begin.
I see the independent have an article today. Usual red top scare mongering headline. Negative and scaremongering on early part of article before balancing out a little more near the end.
keep saying but but TII really need to get a pr firm for this project.
This the one: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/metrolink-hearing-to-start-as-residents-of-homes-facing-demolition-to-make-way-for-95bn-plan-have-their-say/a1707341218.html
There is mention of a 200 year old pub that will have to be demolished too. Can we not all agree Ireland has enough historic pubs and are not really going to miss one.
Reading the summary of the project, it almost sounds too good to be true, and what we will lose during its construction is surely hugely outweighed by what we will gain. Driverless. A train every 90 seconds at peak time. Swords to the city centre in 25 minutes.
Dear TFI, current sitting government, future governments, please, please, don't f*ck it up.
Oral hearing properly kicked off now.
Absolutely nothing in the video, just fyi, only a bare few zero context words.
How much are people willing to pay for this?
Current estimate is about 9 billion so we're looking at at least double that.
That isn't how these costs work. TII have an excellent track record of brining in projects on time and on budget. All the Luas lines, the intercity motorway network, Dublin Port Tunnel, etc.
If TII sign a contract of 9bn, it will come in at that.
Having said that, if it was double that, I'd still build it, it is vital to Dublins growth and it needs to be done, there is no alternative, the longer we delay it just the more expensive it will get.
We currently have a surplus of 20 billion. What else could we spend it on?
Don't say fix the health service, because it's problem is not lack of funding. Though I agree, a plan does need to be formulated for it.
Apparently there is 10,000 pages worth of plans and documentation for this project.
I suppose the hearing over the next six weeks is go/no go for Metrolink. (This is the furthest it got 15 years ago).
Hopefully nothing hairy will come up. It's disappointing that its taken so long. I'll probably be over 55 by the time the first trains start running so it's unlikely I'll ever use it despite spending a large amount of time in Swords. At least it'll be there for the next generation I suppose.
That 20 billion is all smoke and mirrors. Department of Finance have admitted that surplus could disappear tomorrow depending on what the multinationals decide to do with their tax year on year. There's just no way to know. And on top of that it's unlikely to be a gradual drop off either, it'll be like hitting a cliff edge.
And on top of on top of that, the government are mostly using the surplus to manage the national debt which is around €220B I think. which seems manageable given our GDP at €600B. but the GDP is (again) smoke and mirrors. Our GNI is €340B which is not so hot a ratio. (if you take the modified GNI that comes out at 250B, which is even less hot a ratio.)
The surplus is going towards paying down debt, a sovereign wealth fund and infrastructure which is a very prudent policy so we're pretty safe in that regard. The increase in Corp tax to 15% will also likely leed to further windfalls in the short term at least.
We built the Luas because we thought a metro was too expensive.
I have no problem with the project in principle, Dublin is decades behind Europe when it comes to public transport, but we need to be honest about the cost.
It won't be 9 billion. The same way the National Children's Hospital isn't 500 million.
Costing a new hospital isn't the same as costing a metro line.
Metrolinks costing also comes **after** all of the inflation we gave experienced in the last couple years. The NCHs costing comes before.
You're not comparing apples to apples. Read the funding documenting if you want to read how TII have taken all of that into consideration.
What ever it costs it needs to happen. We need ambition and foresight from the govt on transport and not spend the current economic boom in a thousand tiny ways and have nothing substantial to show for it in the future.
this will be transformative for Dublin once it happens
Get a job in engineering quantities and get a few decades experience and then get yourself hired as a consultant by TII to do an independent audit on costs and then provide your findings. Until then your estimate is meaningless
It could cost 20bn and it would still be worth it.
Personally I would much rather a one off 20bn infrastructure project than pouring another 20bn down the black hole that is HSE
That is a laughably bad video, he shouldn’t have bothered posting it.
Good to see the hearing underway though.
Hearing just finished up. Was interesting to hear TII laying everything out. By the sounds of things there are still a number of outstanding issues between themselves and OPW, which have yet to be ironed out.
Negotiations behind the scenes appear to be taking place to fix these.
The OPW position is laughingly hypocritical. Over the last two decades, they have systematically ripped up Merrion Square, taken down trees, destroyed hedgerows, all in the aim of what? Yet, if TII want to do the same to Stephen's Green for a metro, it is suddenly all wrong.
I don't need to get a job...I'm a solicitor...
You’re 100% wrong. The OPW are responsible for St. Stephen’s Green, not Merrion Square.
The OPW are, however, in charge of the Phoenix Park, and had no problem with it being used as a motorway for years, with cars parked all over the place, with vast areas then used as a car park for the garden show.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w7.vanillicon.com/v2/7c971d7abd9aecad6ea8175587751e64.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://wa.vanillicon.com/v2/a605da6df673e065ac5a7e976411f425.svg)
