March 13, 2019 at 08:01PM
THE huge overspend on the children's hospital has hit the Government's spending plans so badly that Project 2040 could be renamed Project 2140.
Amid fears about cuts and delays to big projects, we haven't heard much from those who have been campaigning for Dublin's Metrolink about the potential knock-on effects for its plans.
The Metrolink would be twice as expensive as all three Luas linesThat's because, there is no such campaign.
The light rail system to connect the city centre to the airport by rail was the jewel in Leo Varadkar's glitzy Project 2040 showcase last year.
It's worth noting he was Transport Minister when he canned the costly project in 2011 during the era of austerity.
So this re-unveiling was a victory of sorts as he and Fine Gael brand themselves as the party of recovery. Those in support of it now point to how it would serve Dublin Airport.
Luas works at Parnell Street in Dublin 1However, surveys show the city centre is not the biggest origin or destination for those using the airport. About a third of people travelling there are not even going to or from Leinster.
More than a third who use the airport travel by bus, a figure which is above average by international standards. Using the Port Tunnel, many of these trips by bus only take 25 minutes to get from the city centre to the airport, the same mooted duration of Metrolink.
Taking all of this into consideration, there is no problem with transport feeding Dublin Airport. So why do we need a costly, disruptive underground rail system to do the same thing?
The officially stated cost of the project is an "estimated" €3billion. Metrolink's website says this is "subject to change as the public consultation progresses and final design is agreed".
Paschal Donohoe is now a cheerleader for a project he once condemnedWe shudder as we think of the overruns in recent projects like the Red and Green Luas lines, the Dublin Port Tunnel and the M50 widening as well as the ongoing disaster of the National Children's Hospital.
At the very least, Metrolink would set taxpayers back double the cost of all three Luas lines and the Port Tunnel — combined. It would easily be the most expensive capital project ever undertaken by the State.
The scary part, given the chaos of the hospital overruns, is that estimates for Metrolink have varied over the years from €2.4billion to as high as €5billion.
The Government is laden down with advisors, department executives, experts and quangos, all on pop star money, yet no one really knows how much the Metro project would cost. They can't even tell us how long it would take to build.
It would go right through the north city, causing enormous disruption during a predicted six-year construction from 2021 to 2027.
It's a build that faces the risk of major delays. A huge portion will go underground. Dublin is a medieval city.
You can't dig up a hedge without discovering some new henge or tomb of a forgotten chieftain.
Snails have held up motorways for years, so how can engineers plan for what archaeological treasure might be found while digging?
When Fianna Fail were pressing ahead with updated plans to build the Metro in 2007, a young Fine Gael Senator warned about the costs of doing so.
He commissioned a report that found the cost of repaying the capital expense would be €22 for every single trip taken up and down the line from Swords to St Stephen's Green. That young Senator was Paschal Donohoe.
His report looked into the benefits being touted. One was how Dublin's road traffic gridlock would be eased as 44 per cent of drivers would simply switch to their shiny new underground link to the city.
Donohoe's report said this claim was "particularly implausible" owing to outcomes in Britain which showed much lower levels of switching.
Fast forward 12 years and as Finance Minister, Paschal Donohoe is cheerleader for a project he once condemned.
Metro has been through so many redesigns, re-routings, cancellations, restarts and rebrandings that the cost of consultants to the taxpayer is already in the millions, before a sod has been turned. Between 2014 and 2018 alone, €3.3million was paid to private engineering firms.
The spending on Metro plans has been ongoing since Cabinet approval in 2002. Back then, optimism was so high the Government said it expected the first Metro to run from 2007.
Better public transport strategies and road management might improve commutes between the centre of Dublin and its airport more readily than underground rail.
Ireland is €220billion in debt. Our capital projects, all on more borrowed money, are an anarchic and costly mess.
Metrolink feels like a party political vanity project that few have really campaigned for.
So much of our tendering, design and cost estimate processes needs to be fixed before we condemn ourselves to another children's hospital fiasco.
The trigger has been pulled, but we are not in a fit state to start the biggest project of them all. Leave the snails alone.
Leo's Diary
Sup diary,
And they're off!
Our ministers will be racing around the world for St Patrick's Day like they're ponies at Cheltenham.
And some of them are so lame at their jobs, they should be put to sleep. Lolrock. That's a shamrock lol btw.
These junkets are vital for the country. Simon Harris is going to San Fran and LA.
Not that he's going to learn how to run a health service over there, but he needs to get some colour in his cheeks.
Hopefully he might get a job in some start-up and never come back.
Simon Coveney is going to Paris to see Macron. I thought it was totes hilarious to send that hologram of a minister and make him stand next to a charismatic, charming leader, just to make him extra unremarkable.
I'm going to Washington to sit awkwardly next to the Trumps and pretend I don't notice how Melania is like soooo hitting on me. Then me and Matt return to the St Pat's parade in NYC.
I'll have to make sure he packs a suit this time — last year he looked he'd just stepped out of Coppers after a county final.
I'll hurry back cos the Brexit thing is exploding.
Don't worry, Shane Ross is travelling this year.
We can't leave him at home in case he accidentally on purpose sells the last bit of the country to Middle England, if there's anything left that the IDA hasn't already given to Facebook.
Lol of the morning t'ya.
Leo O'Varadkar
Ireland not such a great refuge
THERE could not be a greater contrast between Ireland and Britain's handling of the issue of so-called IS brides returning home.
The UK stripped citizenship from Shemima Begum when she announced her intention to return home from Syria after being radicalised.
Lisa SmithBy contrast Lisa Smith, the Dundalk Defence Forces member who married an IS fighter who later died in Syria, will be welcomed home with her two-year-old son and her citizenship intact.
Children's Minister Katherine Zappone struck a compassionate tone when announcing that they would put the child's welfare first in allowing the pair to come home.
She said: "I think that's the way the Government has always operated."
Is it really?
Shamima BegumZappone could do well to visit some children being kept in our direct provision centres to see how Ireland really treats youngsters here.
Smith will be returning from a refugee camp.
But if she needs the assistance of the State, as a citizen she may have to enter the troubled homeless system.
Young kids are being reared from hotel to hotel as the homeless crisis here enters its fourth year.
With no end in sight, we have as many as 4,000 children growing up in the nomadic, fly-by-night world of emergency accommodation.
Zappone deserves no plaudits for doing the decent thing for Lisa and her child, not while citizenship here does not provide sufficient care for our State's youngest members.
Ban on Jacko's work is wacko
SINCE the damning documentary on Michael Jackson aired in Ireland last week, there's been a clamour to remove his art from our broadcasters.
RTE announced it would no longer playlist him, joining many radio and TV stations across the world.
Radio 1 kingpin Ryan Tubridy was one of the first to tell listeners: "The chances are, you won't hear one being played again on this programme, because it just leaves one very queasy at the thought."
Yet this high-minded stance flies in the face of all reason.
Since when do documentaries decide the guilt or innocence of individuals?
Should Louis Theroux's facial expressions replace the High Court now?
Jackson's entire legacy has been thrown under a bus on the basis of two men who have changed their story on the singer more often than he changed his nose.
They came to the doc after lawsuits seeking millions from MJ's estate were thrown out by the courts. Still, the knee-jerk response of broadcasters is irrelevant.
Listeners have far more control over what music they hear now than they did when broadcasters almost monopolised the decision over what we saw and heard.
As long as Spotify, iTunes, YouTube and the rest keep Jackson in their data centres, then legacies will survive broadcast bans.
If Gary Glitter, an artist actually criminally convicted of sex offences, is still on Spotify, then anything goes really.
THE huge overspend on the children's hospital has hit the Government's spending plans so badly that Project 2040 could be renamed Project 2140.
Amid fears about cuts and delays to big projects, we haven't heard much from those who have been campaigning for Dublin's Metrolink about the potential knock-on effects for its plans.
The Metrolink would be twice as expensive as all three Luas linesThat's because, there is no such campaign.
The light rail system to connect the city centre to the airport by rail was the jewel in Leo Varadkar's glitzy Project 2040 showcase last year.
It's worth noting he was Transport Minister when he canned the costly project in 2011 during the era of austerity.
So this re-unveiling was a victory of sorts as he and Fine Gael brand themselves as the party of recovery. Those in support of it now point to how it would serve Dublin Airport.
Luas works at Parnell Street in Dublin 1However, surveys show the city centre is not the biggest origin or destination for those using the airport. About a third of people travelling there are not even going to or from Leinster.
More than a third who use the airport travel by bus, a figure which is above average by international standards. Using the Port Tunnel, many of these trips by bus only take 25 minutes to get from the city centre to the airport, the same mooted duration of Metrolink.
Taking all of this into consideration, there is no problem with transport feeding Dublin Airport. So why do we need a costly, disruptive underground rail system to do the same thing?
The officially stated cost of the project is an "estimated" €3billion. Metrolink's website says this is "subject to change as the public consultation progresses and final design is agreed".
Paschal Donohoe is now a cheerleader for a project he once condemnedWe shudder as we think of the overruns in recent projects like the Red and Green Luas lines, the Dublin Port Tunnel and the M50 widening as well as the ongoing disaster of the National Children's Hospital.
At the very least, Metrolink would set taxpayers back double the cost of all three Luas lines and the Port Tunnel — combined. It would easily be the most expensive capital project ever undertaken by the State.
The scary part, given the chaos of the hospital overruns, is that estimates for Metrolink have varied over the years from €2.4billion to as high as €5billion.
The Government is laden down with advisors, department executives, experts and quangos, all on pop star money, yet no one really knows how much the Metro project would cost. They can't even tell us how long it would take to build.
It would go right through the north city, causing enormous disruption during a predicted six-year construction from 2021 to 2027.
It's a build that faces the risk of major delays. A huge portion will go underground. Dublin is a medieval city.
You can't dig up a hedge without discovering some new henge or tomb of a forgotten chieftain.
Snails have held up motorways for years, so how can engineers plan for what archaeological treasure might be found while digging?
When Fianna Fail were pressing ahead with updated plans to build the Metro in 2007, a young Fine Gael Senator warned about the costs of doing so.
He commissioned a report that found the cost of repaying the capital expense would be €22 for every single trip taken up and down the line from Swords to St Stephen's Green. That young Senator was Paschal Donohoe.
His report looked into the benefits being touted. One was how Dublin's road traffic gridlock would be eased as 44 per cent of drivers would simply switch to their shiny new underground link to the city.
Donohoe's report said this claim was "particularly implausible" owing to outcomes in Britain which showed much lower levels of switching.
Fast forward 12 years and as Finance Minister, Paschal Donohoe is cheerleader for a project he once condemned.
Metro has been through so many redesigns, re-routings, cancellations, restarts and rebrandings that the cost of consultants to the taxpayer is already in the millions, before a sod has been turned. Between 2014 and 2018 alone, €3.3million was paid to private engineering firms.
The spending on Metro plans has been ongoing since Cabinet approval in 2002. Back then, optimism was so high the Government said it expected the first Metro to run from 2007.
Better public transport strategies and road management might improve commutes between the centre of Dublin and its airport more readily than underground rail.
Ireland is €220billion in debt. Our capital projects, all on more borrowed money, are an anarchic and costly mess.
Metrolink feels like a party political vanity project that few have really campaigned for.
So much of our tendering, design and cost estimate processes needs to be fixed before we condemn ourselves to another children's hospital fiasco.
The trigger has been pulled, but we are not in a fit state to start the biggest project of them all. Leave the snails alone.
Leo's Diary
Sup diary,
And they're off!
Our ministers will be racing around the world for St Patrick's Day like they're ponies at Cheltenham.
And some of them are so lame at their jobs, they should be put to sleep. Lolrock. That's a shamrock lol btw.
These junkets are vital for the country. Simon Harris is going to San Fran and LA.
Not that he's going to learn how to run a health service over there, but he needs to get some colour in his cheeks.
Hopefully he might get a job in some start-up and never come back.
Simon Coveney is going to Paris to see Macron. I thought it was totes hilarious to send that hologram of a minister and make him stand next to a charismatic, charming leader, just to make him extra unremarkable.
I'm going to Washington to sit awkwardly next to the Trumps and pretend I don't notice how Melania is like soooo hitting on me. Then me and Matt return to the St Pat's parade in NYC.
I'll have to make sure he packs a suit this time — last year he looked he'd just stepped out of Coppers after a county final.
I'll hurry back cos the Brexit thing is exploding.
Don't worry, Shane Ross is travelling this year.
We can't leave him at home in case he accidentally on purpose sells the last bit of the country to Middle England, if there's anything left that the IDA hasn't already given to Facebook.
Lol of the morning t'ya.
Leo O'Varadkar
Ireland not such a great refuge
THERE could not be a greater contrast between Ireland and Britain's handling of the issue of so-called IS brides returning home.
The UK stripped citizenship from Shemima Begum when she announced her intention to return home from Syria after being radicalised.
Lisa SmithBy contrast Lisa Smith, the Dundalk Defence Forces member who married an IS fighter who later died in Syria, will be welcomed home with her two-year-old son and her citizenship intact.
Children's Minister Katherine Zappone struck a compassionate tone when announcing that they would put the child's welfare first in allowing the pair to come home.
She said: "I think that's the way the Government has always operated."
Is it really?
Shamima BegumZappone could do well to visit some children being kept in our direct provision centres to see how Ireland really treats youngsters here.
Smith will be returning from a refugee camp.
But if she needs the assistance of the State, as a citizen she may have to enter the troubled homeless system.
Young kids are being reared from hotel to hotel as the homeless crisis here enters its fourth year.
With no end in sight, we have as many as 4,000 children growing up in the nomadic, fly-by-night world of emergency accommodation.
Zappone deserves no plaudits for doing the decent thing for Lisa and her child, not while citizenship here does not provide sufficient care for our State's youngest members.
Ban on Jacko's work is wacko
SINCE the damning documentary on Michael Jackson aired in Ireland last week, there's been a clamour to remove his art from our broadcasters.
RTE announced it would no longer playlist him, joining many radio and TV stations across the world.
Radio 1 kingpin Ryan Tubridy was one of the first to tell listeners: "The chances are, you won't hear one being played again on this programme, because it just leaves one very queasy at the thought."
Yet this high-minded stance flies in the face of all reason.
Since when do documentaries decide the guilt or innocence of individuals?
Should Louis Theroux's facial expressions replace the High Court now?
Jackson's entire legacy has been thrown under a bus on the basis of two men who have changed their story on the singer more often than he changed his nose.
They came to the doc after lawsuits seeking millions from MJ's estate were thrown out by the courts. Still, the knee-jerk response of broadcasters is irrelevant.
Listeners have far more control over what music they hear now than they did when broadcasters almost monopolised the decision over what we saw and heard.
As long as Spotify, iTunes, YouTube and the rest keep Jackson in their data centres, then legacies will survive broadcast bans.
If Gary Glitter, an artist actually criminally convicted of sex offences, is still on Spotify, then anything goes really.