by Gary Fitzgerald
Campaign for Sensible Transport (CaST) 2001
At a public meeting in Nenagh on Tuesday 25th September 2001 the Labour Party announced its policy on roads. Mr Eamon Gilmore said that Labour’s spending priorities were health, education, public transport and then roads. Mr Gilmore read the text of a Dail debate on the creation of the NRA in 1991 where he looked for the creation of a National Transport Authority that would oversee Ireland’s transport needs.
He and Senator Kathleen O’Meara committed the Labour Party to a review of the National Development Plan if elected to government. “This is not our plan,” Mr Gilmore stated, “it is the current governments and it was created with out any public consultation”.
Yet when asked what Labour’s position on the current road building plans Mr Gilmore stated that he and his party supported plans to build dual-carriageway or motorway standard roads from Dublin to the regions. This was to aid regional development he added.
Campaign for Sensible Transport representatives at the meeting took issue with this assertion. Mr Gilmore was told that no reports or analyses exists that show that motorways would be good for regional development. He was also told that the traffic figures on many of the routes do not justify a motorway. The National Roads Needs Study talks about the need to avoid building unnecessary roads, yet Mr Gilmore committed Labour to doing just that.
Mr Gilmore outlines at length his proposals for a better public consultation process, including a concept stage. He was asked how it would be possible to have a concept stage on road building when Labour had already decided to build motorways. He did not give an answer to that question. Nor did he explain how, if public transport was to be prioritised above road building, Labour could sanction building motorways in the first instance.
Since that meeting the Campaign for Sensible Transport has tried on numerous occasions to get Labour to explain these contradictions. Letters, emails and phone calls have either been unanswered or have avoided any detailed explanation. When asked a direct question on details of Labour’s transport policy Mr Gilmore replied by suggesting that the Campaign for Sensible Transport should send in its understanding of Labour’s position and that it would then reply.
The search to find out Labour’s true roads policy continues. If it is this hard to get an answer to a simple questions, can you trust answers you get before an election will be policy afterwards?
Copyright © Campaign for Sensible Transport (CaST) 2001
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