Did you know that this year is the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Dart line? How time flies. In 1984, Irish GDP was €20 billion; today it’s just over €600 billion – a 30-fold increase. If we consider a more modest measure, called GNI, we see today’s Irish national income is €400 billion. Whichever way you look at it, the economy is far bigger than the mid-1980s.

Have we seen a corresponding 30-fold increase in public transport investment in the interim? In fact, over the past four decades the only major public transport built in Ireland consists of two Dublin tram lines and a couple of stations along old, essentially Victorian, railway lines. That’s about it.

It’s not for want of trying from Irish Rail, which regularly advocates for more investment. The problem lies in the political class, the planning system and senior Civil Service priorities.

When the Dart was unveiled, it was only a third of the rail plan for Dublin. The original 1970s proposal envisaged the Dart running along the old Victorian coastal line (the easy bit); a new Dart line out to the burgeoning suburbs of Tallaght and Blanchardstown (a harder bit); and an underground Dart line connecting Heuston with Connolly, integrating the entire system. The last two plans were dropped and even at the inauguration of the Dart, then taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, a transport economist, stressed the decision to finance the Dart was taken by the previous government, when asked about lack of investment in the West.

With this sort of political ambition, is it any wonder that Ireland’s public transport is among the worst in Europe? This week, as the long-planned Dublin metro hearings resume, we hear again not only local politicians but members of our national parliament putting the interests of a few hundred people over the interests of millions of citizens.

In economics, putting the interests of the few ahead of the many........

© The Irish Times