cgcsb wrote: » 2bn spending spree to be announced tomorrow apparently, hopefully there's some starting funds for DUhttp://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/coalition-to-splash-2bn-in-budget-to-buy-election-30656879.html
VeryOwl wrote: » I think that was almost the template of how you write a terrible article. That said, would fully expect to see little imagination or long-term planning in the budget.
poteen o hooley wrote: » There's more chance of Elvis Presley crashing a UFO into the Loch Ness Monster than of FG being in Gov. after the next election.
1huge1 wrote: » well considering they are the most popular party in the country, you might just be wrong about that.
You're away with the fairies. (1) FF will not go into gov with them. If you don't know why no point me wasting time debating it. (2) Lab will be wiped out (3) SF and FG ha ha (4) SF, FF and leftish independents will be the largest group by far. Finny Gale might have a slight edge in the current polls but things will get worse for them by polling.
You know the way luas is a reliable (green line, red line as far as Museum) service, yeah? And it made its money in a much shorter space of time than anyone envisaged, yeah? Why is the government opposed to such a crucial rail link up in the capital city? Is it just because they work in five year blocks, and couldn't care less about the long term?
Oasis_Dublin wrote: » You know the way luas is a reliable (green line, red line as far as Museum) service, yeah? And it made its money in a much shorter space of time than anyone envisaged, yeah? Why is the government opposed to such a crucial rail link up in the capital city? Is it just because they work in five year blocks, and couldn't care less about the long term?
The big difference is that Luas has nothing to do with CIE/IR. I would say the unwillingness to advance DU is more to do with government/senior civil servants distrust of CIE and the fact that the company is a perpetual loss making basketcase. The government doesn’t want to invest any more money into the company and would be quite happy for it to die.
Idbatterim wrote: » they will be on best behaviour mode coming up to the elections, have a semi giveaway budget next year and probably have unemployment below 9% come the next election. The Irish water furore will no doubt be well over at that stage too...
Idbatterim wrote: » they were close to starting and then the economy tanked, a REAL pity that they hadnt started. Ultimately I would blame the politicians more than voters, like I said, the should do what it takes to get reelected and once in, the can do contentious stuff (to some) in the early years. They generally only do something here, when the situation is so bad, that it cant be ignored... By the time MN gets built for example, the airport will probably have close to if not more than 30,000,000 using it! It will be 22,000,000 this year, a mere 6 miles out of town and it doesnt have its own rail link, now I appreciate the airports numbers exploded during the boom and why it was derailed during the bust, but this should be on the cards again asap AFAIC, it will open up serious amounts of land for high density development, increase employment, increase property value in its vicinity, thus increasing council taxes, increase people's quality of life, save the economy lots in loss of productivity... DU is priority one though... If they serve the docklands with proper high quality transport, they could house a major amount of people in the docklands on sites currently vacant or by demolishing a lot of the low density crap that they have allowed and continue to allow (obviously the higher the site value, the quicker this would / could happen)...
Pete_Cavan wrote: » The big difference is that Luas has nothing to do with CIE/IR. I would say the unwillingness to advance DU is more to do with government/senior civil servants distrust of CIE and the fact that the company is a perpetual loss making basketcase. The government doesn’t want to invest any more money into the company and would be quite happy for it to die. Instead they are investing in NTA/RPA projects (Luas BXD, BRT, cycling network). If we were going to see DU progressed any time soon I would have expected the KPR2 to get funding in this budget. It seems like a no-brainer of a project; creates a new Dart line to service west Dublin/east Kildare, improves journey times on intercity services and paves the way for DU. It is much more than a project for Dublin, it benefits the national rail network. However, policy seems to be to keep funding away from IR and hope that it will things get so bad that they can pull the plug.
cgcsb wrote: » I think you are overlooking the vast differential in capital costs. The state can fund several projects across the country e.g. BXD, BRT, Cycle network and bike schemes in the regional Cities. Although DART Underground will probably deliver as many if not more benefits, it's the speed of delivery and the value of the smaller projects that attracts looser purse strings. DART u is a more long term project, a minimum of 4 years construction and massive capital required. It's just not as politically appealing.
MICKEYG wrote: » And therein lies the problem with this country. Rather than make the right decision and stand behind it we make the political short term decision and pay for it. It does amaze me that even though both DU and MN have such strong business cases, no one tried to solve the problem with private funding. We had a construction industry on it knees with huge numbers of available workers. Why not get private investors in to fund the whole thing (at prices lower than would be the case even today), promising them a share of revenues to repay their investment. I know lending was hard to come by but could the EIB not have stepped up given the favorable cost benefit analysis? Doing the above would mean no impact on the exchequer figures. Maybe I am being naive here.
