I call for a debate on transport. People often say, "I hate to say I told you told so". I want to say "I told you so" today. I campaigned for nearly 30 years for an underground railway system in Dublin. I got the late Dr. Garret FitzGerald to do the mathematics. Senator Leyden is nodding; he was here for that debate and contributed to it. Dr. FitzGerald demonstrated that it was impossible for a surface tram to carry the required number of passengers because neither the length nor the frequency of the tram could be increased because of the traffic congestion. Now Councillor Ciarán Cuffe says taxis must be removed from sections of Dublin and another councillor says buses must be removed in order to facilitate the tram.

According to a report in The Irish Times:

Mr Cuffe was speaking after a new 55-metre Luas tram was forced to stop on the 45-metre O’Connell Bridge on Thursday. The tram stopped with its rear carriage protruding across a yellow box junction between O’Connell Bridge and the south quays.

The incident led to massive traffic jams all over Dublin. The trams were also full and could not take any more people. The trams flew past people in stations located all over suburban Dublin and left people absolutely stranded.

What was the Senator quoting, for the record?

I am quoting from the edition of The Irish Times of 9 February and the headline was that Dublin faces another Luas snarl-up.

I welcome the fact that it appears further sections of metro north will be put underground. I understand that there is still a possibility for an orbital underground railway system for Dublin that can be installed reasonably cheaply. I remember bringing over Professor Melis Maynar from Spain. He supervised the building of the Madrid and Barcelona underground system. He travelled here to speak to the Cabinet sub-committee. He showed how we could build an underground in a third of the expected time and at half of the cost. The Government at that time nearly did it.

We could not have that.

That would have been common sense.

The then Government lost their nerve at the very last minute.

Finally, I was really rather saddened to see all of the lovely trees on Molesworth Street uprooted.

Hear, hear.

I am not sure if a commercial company uprooted the trees. There has been a lot of office development. It is really astonishing that a commercial company can pull up a whole line of trees and leave blank spaces in the ground.