Is the Minister aware that apparently outside of his Department there appears to be unanimous agreement that there is a need for a transportation authority of some kind?

They cannot even mind the streets they have without giving them any more control. They are being asked for the last 15 years to do something about it.

Has the Minister any views on the need to set up a transportation authority which would be able to act unilaterally in the various areas of responsibility which presently are fragmented between different groups? That is the basis of Deputy Quinn's concern. What is the Minister going to do about that? The difficulty is that different bodies have different responsibilities.

I am worried about getting into a long debate.

During the course of my reply I referred to the fact that the Minister for Tourism and Transport has established a transport consultative commission to investigate transport generally and various reports.

Will the Minister accept that we have congestion of reports as well as traffic?

Order, please.

Will the Minister research in his own Department, if that is even necessary, to find out the exhortations that have been made by his predecessors as long as 15 years ago to the same Dublin Corporation to do something before it was too late? Now it is too late.

They have no powers.

No powers, be damned. They would not do anything when they were given the power and the money.

(Cavan-Monaghan): Arising out of Deputy Blaney's supplementary question is it not a fact that long since that one of the Deputy's predecessors in Fianna Fáil had charge of Dublin Corporation because they abolished the city council and took over control?

Order, please.

The Minister referred to the transport council established by the Minister for Transport and Tourism. Have the terms of reference of that transport council anything to do with traffic congestion? Are they not purely concerned with the relationships in the volume of different types of transport?

This has nothing to do with the question.

The Minister is using this as a red herring.

I also said that the consultative commission was set up to investigate and report on transport generally and with initial consideration of the problems in the Dublin area.

That has nothing to do with traffic congestion.

Then what are we investigating?